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THE 


CREATOR  AND  THE  CREATURE, 


OB, 


THE  WONDERS  OF  DIVINE  LOVE. 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER,  D.D., 

PRIEST  OF  THE  ORATORY  OF  ST.  PHILIP  NERI. 

Oi  ya.%  ?&eL*y»i  ia  vottirBxt  too  Qiit. 

PYTHAGORAS. 

FOURTH  EDITION. 


LONDON: 
THOMAS  RICHARDSON  AND  SON, 


DUBLIK   ANO    DERBY. 


26  I 

TO 

ST.  MATTHEW, 

THE  APOSTLE  AND  EVANGELIST 

OF  THE  INCARNATE  WORD, 

THE  PATTERN  OF  OBEDIENCE 
TO  DIVINE  VOCATIONS, 

THE  MODEL  OF  PROMPT  SUBMISSION 
TO  HOLY  INSPIRATIONS, 

THE  TEACHER  AND  THE  EXAMPLE 
OF  CORRESPONDENCE  TO  GRACE, 

WHO 
LEFT  ALL  FOR  GOD, 

SELF  AND  THE  WORLD  AND  WEALTH, 

AT  GOD'S  ONE  WORD, 

WITHOUT  QUESTION,  WITHOUT  RESERVE, 

WITHOUT  DELAY, 

TO  BE  FOR  EVER  IN  THE  CHURCH 

THE  DOCTOR,  THE  PROPHET,  AND  THE  PATRON, 

THE  COMFORT  AND  THE  JUSTIFICATION, 

OF  THOSE   WHO  FOLLOW   HEAVENLY  CALLS 

IN    THE   WORLD'S   DESPITE, 

AND   WHO   GIVE   THEMSELVES   IN   LOVE, 

AS   HE   GAVE    HIMSELF, 

WITHOUT    LIMIT    OR    CONDITION 

AS  CREATURES  TO  THEIR  CREATOR. 


PREFACE. 


It  appears  necessary  to  trespass  on  the  reader's 
patience  for  awhile  by  giving  him  the  history  of 
the  composition  of  this  Treatise.  Books,  reviews, 
conversation,  personal  experience,  and  the  phe- 
nomena forced  upon  our  notice  in  dealing  with 
souls,  seem  to  concur  in  showing  that  it  is  almost 
a  characteristic  feature  of  the  present  age,  at  least 
in  this  country,  to  have  harsh,  unkindly,  jealous, 
suspicious,  and  distrustful  thoughts  of  God.  It  is 
not  so  much  that  men  do  not  believe  in  Him,  as  in 
past  times,  or  that  they  are  irreverently  inquisitive, 
as  they  have  been  in  other  days.  Infidelity  and 
intellectual  impiety  are  unfortunately  common 
enough;  but  they  are  not,  as  compared  with  other 
times,  the  characteristic  sins  of  the  day  with  us. 
We  find  in  their  place  abundant  admissions  of  the 
existence,  and  even  of  the  excellence,  of  God;  but 
joined  with  this,  a  reluctance,  which  hardly  likes 
to  put  itself  into  words,  to  acknowledge  His  sove- 
reignty. There  is  a  desire  to  strip  Him  of  His 
majesty,  to  qualify  His  rights  and  to  abate  His 


V1U  PREFACE. 

prerogatives,  to  lower  Him  so  as  to  bring  Him 
somewhat  nearer  to  ourselves,  to  insist  on  His 
obeying  our  own  notions  of  the  laws  of  morality, 
and  confining  Himself  within  such  limits  of  justice 
and  equity  as  are  binding  on  creatures  rather  than 
on  the  Creator.  There  is  a  tendency  to  turn  religion 
into  a  contract  between  parties,  very  unequal  cer- 
tainly, but  not  infinitely  unequal,  to  object  to  what- 
ever in  God's  Providence  betokens  a  higher  rule 
than  the  rule  of  our  duties  towards  each  other,  and 
to  revolt  from  any  appearance  of  exclusiveness, 
supreme  will,  and  unaccountable  irresponsibility, 
which  there  may  be  in  His  conduct  towards  us. 
This  appears  to  be  the  attitude  of  the  day  towards 
God.  The  acknowledgment  of  Him  is  conditional 
on  His  submitting  to  be  praised  and  admired,  as 
other  than  the  God  whose  own  will  is  His  sole 
law,  whose  own  glory  is  His  necessary  end,  and 
who  by  virtue  of  His  own  perfections  can  have  no 
other  end,  rest,  or  sufficiency,  than  His  own  ever- 
blessed  Self. 

If  this  were  simply  a  mitigated  form  of  infi- 
delity belonging  to  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
affecting  those  only  who  are  immersed  in  world- 
liness,  the  present  Treatise  would  not  have  been 
written,  inasmuch  as  it  is  purely  practical,  and 
addressed  only  to  believers.  But  the  epidemics  of 
the  world  are  never  altogether  unfelt  within  the 
Church.  The  air  is  corrupted,  and  in  some  much 
milder  form  the  souls  of  believers  are  affected  by 
the  pestilence  which  reigns  without.  So  is  it  in 
the  present  case.    In  the  difficulties  through  which 


PHEFACE.  IX 


men  Lave  to  force  their  way,  by  the  help  of  grace, 
into  the  One  True  Fold,  in  the  obstacles  which 
hinder  others  from  advancing  in  the  ways  of 
holiness,  in  the  temptations  which  tease,  if  they 
do  not  endanger  faith,  in  the  treatment  of  religious 
controversies,  in  the  sides  men  take  in  ecclesiastical 
politics,  in  the  tendencies  of  their  theological  views, 
and  even  in  the  common  exercises  of  daily  devo- 
tion, we  find  indubitable  traces  of  an  attitude 
towards  God,  caught  from  the  fashion  of  the  day, 
and  which  seems  to  betoken  some  obliquity  in  the 
mind,  logically  working  itself  out  in  the  worship 
and  obedience  of  our  souls.  It  is  not  that  believers 
believe  wrongly  about  God,  but  either  that  they  do 
not  understand,  or  that  they  do  not  realize,  what 
they  most  rightly  believe. ' 

It  has  thus  come  to  pass,  from  various  circum- 
stances which  need  not  be  detailed,  that  the  com- 
position of  this  Treatise  has  been  a  work  of  charity 
towards  souls,  almost  forced  upon  the  writer  in 
consequence  of  the  position  which  he  occupied, 
and  the  work  into  which  such  a  sphere  as  London 
introduced  him.  The  result  of  much  thought  on 
the  subject  led  to  the  conclusion,  that  it  is  possible 
for  the  intellectual  inconsistencies  of  men  to  realize 
that  they  have  a  Creator  without  realizing,  what  is 
already  involved,  that  they  themselves  are  crea- 
tures, or  what  is  actually  implied  in  being  a  crea- 
ture ;  and  further,  it  seemed  that  this  very  incon- 
sistency explained  and  accounted  for  the  phenomena 
in  question. 

The  Treatise  therefore,  will  bo  found  naturally 


X  PREFACE. 

to  divide  itself  into  three  parts.  The  First  Boole, 
consisting  of  three  chapters,  is  the  statement  of 
the  case,  and  contains  a  description  of  the  phe- 
nomena around  us,  a  detailed  account  of  what  it  is 
to  have  a  Creator,  and  of  what  follows  from  our 
being  His  creatures.  The  result  of  this  inquiry 
is  to  find,  that  creation  is  simply  an  act  of  divino 
love,  and  cannot  be  accounted  for  on  any  other 
supposition  than  that  of  an  immense  and  eternal 
love.  The  Second  Book,  consisting  of  five  chapters, 
occupies  itself  with  the  difficulties  and  depths  of 
this  creative  love,  which  have  been  classified  as 
answers  to  the  following  questions,  Why  does  God 
wish  us  to  love  Him,  Why  does  He  Himself  lovo 
us,  How  can  we  love  Him,  How  do  we  actually 
love  Him,  and  how  does  He  repay  our  love.  Here, 
in  other  times,  or  in  another  country  perhaps,  the 
Treatise  might  have  concluded.  But  the  course  of 
the  investigation  has  started  some  grave  objec- 
tions, which  the  Third  Book,  consisting  of  four 
chapters,  is  occupied  in  answering.  If  this  account 
of  creative  love  be  true,  if  God  redeemed  us 
because  He  persisted  in  desiring,  even  after  our 
fall,  to  have  us  with  Him  as  participators  in  His 
own  eternal  beatitude,  salvation  ought  to  be  easy, 
evei?  to  fallen  nature.  If  it  is  easy,  then  it  might 
appear  to  some  to  follow  that  at  least  the  majority 
of  believers  would  be  saved.  If  these  two  ques- 
tions are  answered  in  the  affirmative,  then  a  fresh 
difficulty  rises  to  view.  How  are  we  to  account  for 
what  is  an  undoubted  fact,  that  these  relations  of 
tho  Creator  and  the  creature  are  not  practically 


PREFACE.  XI 

acknowledged  by  creatures  ?  Tlio  answer  to  this 
objection  is  found  in  the  nature,  the  power,  and 
the  prevalence  of  worldliness,  The  flesh  and  the 
devil  will  not  adequately  account  for  the  way  in 
which  men  behave  towards  God,  and  the  attitude 
in  which  they  put  themselves  before  Him.  World- 
liness is  the  principal  explanation  of  it.  But  then 
the  conclusions,  which  may  be  drawn  from  an  in- 
spection of  worldliness,  seem  to  dishonour,  if  not  to 
destroy,  the  previous  conclusions  about  the  easiness 
of  salvation  and  the  multitude  of  the  elect.  How  is 
it  that  so  many  can  escape,  how  is  it  that  they  do 
escape  ?  By  personal  love  of  the  Creator,  by  a 
religion  which  is  simply  a  service  of  love,  by  a  love 
which  brings  them  within  the  suck  of  that  gulf  of 
the  Divine  Beauty,  which  is  our  holiness  here,  as  it 
is  our  happiness  hereafter.  And  thus  the  creature 
secures  that  enjoyment  and  possession  of  the  Creator 
which  was  His  primary  intention  in  creation;  and 
so  the  Treatise  ends. 

Although  it  seems  occupied  with  very  simpl© 
truths,  and  might  almost  be  regarded  as  a  com- 
mentary on  the  catechism,  the  composition  of  it 
has  been  a  work  both  of  time  and  labour.  It 
stands  to  the  Author's  other  works  in  the  relation 
of  source  and  origin.  It  has  been  this  view  of 
God,  pondered  for  years,  that  has  given  rise  to 
the  theological  bias,  visible  in  the  other  books,  as 
well  as  the  opinions  expressed  on  the  spiritual 
life.  Difficulties  which  may  have  been  found  in 
the  other  books,  respecting  the  Sacred  Humanity, 
the    Blessed    Sacrament,   our  Lady,   Purgatory, 


XU  PREFACE,, 

Indulgences,  and  tbe  like,  will  for  the  most  part 
find  their  explanation  here;  for  this  treatise  ex- 
plains in  detail  the  point  of  view  from  which  the 
Author  hahitually  looks  at  all  religious  questions, 
of  practice  as  well  as  of  speculation. 

It  should  also  he  home  in  mind  that  the  Treatise 
is  a  whole,  and  keeps  sedulously  to  its  one  subject. 
Hence,  unless  the  hook  were  loaded  with  repeti- 
tions, a  cursory  reader  may  easily  meet  with  state- 
ments, against  which  grave  objections  may  seem  to 
lie,  whereas  those  very  objections  have  been  met 
or  provided  against  in  some  other  portion  of  the 
work.  The  Author  trusts  it  is  no  want  of  humility 
to  say,  that,  after  the  careful  thought  and  deep 
reading  of  years,  he  should  refuse  to  trouble  him- 
self with  criticisms,  which  shall  not  bear  upon  them 
the  impress  of  a  careful  study  of  his  book,  at  least 
proportionate  to  the  care  he  has  expended  upon  its 
composition. 

The  Author  cannot  allow  his  Treatise  to  go 
forth  to  the  public,  without  acknowledging  the 
obligations  he  is  under  to  the  Rev.  Father  Gloag, 
the  librarian  of  the  London  Oratory,  who  has 
spared  no  pains  in  verifying  quotations,  in  seeking 
for  passages  in  voluminous  works  to  which  other 
writers  had  given  incorrect  references  or  made 
vague  allusions,  and  also  in  bringing  under  the 
notice  of  the  Author  some  important  passages  of 
which  he  was  not  aware  himself,  especially  with 
reference  to  the  Baian  Propositions.  As  the  work 
has  been  written  for  the  most  part  in  ill-health,. 


PREFACE.  Xlll 

and  under  the  pressure  of  other  duties  from  which 
lie  could  not  be  dispensed,  the  Author  is  the  moro 
anxious  to  acknowledge  thus  gratefully  a  coopera- 
tion, which  circumstances  rendered  peculiarly  valu- 
able, and  which,  tedious  and  troublesome  as  it 
was,  baa  been  proffered,  "with  such  a  graceful  kind- 
ness, as  to  make  the  sense  of  obligation  a  pleasure 
rather  than  a  burden. 

In  truth  though  all  appears  so  plain  and  smooth, 
the  composition  of  the  Treatise  has  in  reality  led 
the  Writer  along  a  very  thorny  and  broken  path. 
The  ground  of  creation,  of  the  natural  order  and  of 
the  supernatural  order,  is,  as  theologians  well 
know,  strewn  all  over,  as  if  a  broken  precipice  had 
overwhelmed  it,  with  Condemned  Propositions,  the 
theology  of  which  is  full  of  fine  distinctions  and 
insidious  subtleties,  and,  not  unfrequently,  of  ap- 
parent contradictions.  Nowhere  does  the  malice 
of  error  more  painfully  succeed  in  harassing  the 
student,  than  in  this  matter  of  Condemned  Propo- 
sitions. The  utmost  pains  however  have  been 
taken  to  secure  accuracy.  The  best  theologians 
have  been  collated,  even  to  weariness;  and  if  the 
book  had  been  allowed  to  exhibit  in  notes  or  ap- 
pendices the  labour  which  it  has  entailed,  it  would 
have  swollen  to  an  inconvenient  bulk.  It  has 
moreover,  been  submitted  to  two  careful  and  minute 
revisions  by  others,  in  whose  ability  and  theological 
attainments  there  was  good  reason  to  confide.  But 
the  author  cannot  now  entrust  it  to  the  thoughtful 
charity  and  kindly  interpretations  of  his  readers, 


Xl?  PREFACE. 

Without  also  submitting  it  in  all  respects,  and  with- 
out the  slightest  reserve,  to  the  judgment  of  the 
Church,  retracting  and  disavowing  beforehand  any 
statement  which  may  be  at  variance  with  her  autho- 
rized teaching,  who  is  the  sole,  as  well  as  the  infal- 
lible, preceptress  of  the  nations  in  the  ways  of  eter- 
nal truth. 

Sydenham  Sill, 
Feast  of  the  Dedication 
Of  the  Basilica  of  St.  Peter  au<3  SU  PauL 
1856. 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  I. 

THE  CASE  STATED  BETWEEN  THE  CREATOR  AND  THE  CREATURE!. 
CHAP.  PAGE. 

I. — A  new  fashion  of  an  old  sin,  21 

II. — What  it  i9  to  be  a  Creature,  ..         ...         .,.        43 

III. — What  it  is  to  have  a  Creator,  *.         81 


BOOK  II. 

THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  CREATIVE  LOVE. 

I. — Why  God  wishes  us  to  love  Him,                129 

II. — Why  God  loves  us,      159 

III. — Our  means  of  loving  God,     ,         193 

IV. — Our  actual  love  of  God,         239 

V.— In  what  way  God  repays  our  love,              26*4 

BOOK  III. 

OBJECTIONS  CONSIDERED. 

I. — The  easiness  of  salvation,      299 

II. — The  great  mass  of  believers,              ...          337 

III.— The  world,         394 

IV. — Our  own  Gud,               ,         429 


THE  CREATOR  AND  THE  CREATURE: 

OR, 

THE  WONDERS  OF  DIVINE  LOYE. 


BOOK  I. 

THE  CASE  STATED  BETWEEN  THE 

CREATOR  AND  THE  CREATURE. 


THE  CREATOR  AND  THE  CREATURE. 


BOOK  I. 


THE  CASE   STATED  BETWEEN  THE  CREATOR  AND  THE 

CREATURE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN. 

"Quid  ad  me  si  quia  non  intelligat?  Gaudeat  et  ipse  dicens:  Quid  est 
hoc?  Gaudeat  etiam  sic,  et  arnet,  non  inveniendo  in  venire  potius  Te, 
quam  inveniendo  non  invenire  Te."--<S.  Auguslin. 

Life  is  short,  and  it  is  wearing  fast  away.  We  lose  a 
great  deal  of  time,  and  we  want  short  roads  to  heaven, 
though  the  right  road  is  in  truth  far  shorter  than  we 
believe.  It  is  true  of  most  men  that  their  light  is 
greater  than  their  heat,  which  is  only  saying  that  we 
practice  less  than  we  profess.  Yet  there  are  many 
souls,  good,  noble,  and  affectionate,  who  seem  rather 
to  want  light  than  heat.  They  want  to  know  more 
of  God,  more  of  themselves,  and  more  of  the  relation 
in  which  they  stand  to  God,  and  then  they  would 
love  and  serve  Him  better.  There  are  many  a^ain 
who  when  they  read  or  hear  of  the  spiritual  life,  or 
come  across  the  ordinary  maxims  of  Christian  perfec- 
tion, do  not  understand  what  is  put  before  them.  It 
is  as  if  some  one  spoke  to  them  in  a  foreign  language. 
Either  the  words  are  without  meaning,  or  the  ideas 


22  A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN. 

are  far-fetched  and  unreal.  They  stand  off  from  per- 
sons who  profess  to  teach  such  doctrines,  or  to  livo 
by  them,  as  if  they  had  some  contagious  disease  which 
they  might  catch  themselves.  Yet  they  are  often  very 
little  tainted  by  worldliness ;  often  they  are  men  who 
have  made  sacrifices  for  God,  and  who  would  lay  down 
their  lives  for  His  Church.  Their  instincts  are  good  ; 
yet  they  seem  to  want  something;  and  whatever  it  is 
that  they  lack,  the  absence  of  it  appears  to  put  them 
under  a  most  mournful  disability  in  the  way  of  attaining 
holiness.  In  other  words,  there  are  multitudes  of  men 
so  good  that  it  seems  inevitable  that  they  must  be  much 
more  good  than  they  really  are,  and  the  difficulty  is  how 
so  much  goodness  can  continue  to  exist  without  more 
goodness. 

This  is  a  phenomenon  which  has  at  once  attracted 
the  attention  and  excited  the  sorrow  of  all  who  love 
the  souls  for  which  Jesus  shed  His  Precious  Blood. 
It  may  not  be  true  that  any  one  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem will  meet  or  explain  all  the  difficulties  of  this  dis- 
tresfcing  experience.  Much  lies  deep  in  the  manifold 
corruption  of  our  hearts.  But  there  is  one  fact  which 
goes  far  towards  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  matter, 
and  which  is  at  the  same  time  rightly  considered,  a 
profound  mystery.  It  is  that  men,  even  pious  men, 
do  not  continually  bear  in  mind  that  they  are  creatures, 
and  have  never  taken  the  pains  to  get  a  clear  idea  of 
what  is  involved  in  being  a  creature.  Hence  it  is  true 
to  say,  even  of  multitudes  of  the  faithful,  that  they 
have  no  adequate  or  indeed  distinct  notion  of  the  rela- 
tion in  which  they  stand  to  God,  of  His  rights,  or  of 
their  obligations:  and  when  trial  comes,  their  inade< 
qunte  idea  betrays  them  into  conduct  quite  at  variance 
with  their  antecedents. 


A.  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN.  23 

Forgetfulness  of  God  has  been  in  all  ages  the  grand 
evil  of  the  world  :  a  forgetfulness  so  contrary  to  reason, 
and  so  opposed  also  to  the  daily  evidence  of  the  senses, 
that  it  can  be  accounted  for  on  no  other  hypothesis 
than  that  of  original  sin  and  the  mystery  of  the  fall. 
This  forgetfulness  of  God  has  been  far  more  common 
than  open  revolt  against  Him.  The  last  is  rather  the 
Bin  of  angels,  the  first  the  sin  of  men.  Yet  every  age 
of  the  world  has  its  own  prevailing  type  and  fashion 
of  iniquity;  and  in  these  latter  times  it  appears  as  if 
the  forgetfulness  of  God  had  taken  the  shape  of  forget 
fulness  on  our  part  that  we  are  creatures.  Men  may 
realize  that  they  are  creatures,  imperfect,  finite,  and 
dependent.  This  truth  may  be  continually  coming 
uppermost  in  books  of  morals,  in  systems  of  philosophy, 
and  in  the  general  tone  of  society.  And  yet,  with  all 
this,  God  may  be  set  aside  and  passed  over,  almost  as 
if  He  did  not  exist.  The  world  simply  does  not  advert 
to  Him.  Who  that  has  read  certain  philosophical  and 
scientific  books  of  the  last  century  does  not  know  how 
men  could  write  of  creation  without  their  thoughts  so 
much  as  touching  or  coming  in  contact  with  the  idea 
of  the  Creator?  To  such  writers  creation  seems  the 
end  of  and  answer  to  all  things,  just  as  the  Most  Holy 
Trinity  is  to  a  believer.  They  sp^ak  of  creation,  inves- 
tigate creation,  draw  inferences  from  creation,  without 
so  much  as  brushing  against  a  personal  or  living 
Creator  even  in  their  imagination.  Creator  is  to 
them  simply  a  masculine  form  of  the  neuter  noun 
creation,  and  they  have  a  kind  of  instinct  against  using 
it,  which  they  have  probably  never  perceived,  or  never 
taken  the  trouble  to  explain  even  to  themselves.  It  is 
not  on  any  theory,  or  any  atheistical  principle,  that 
God  is  thus  passed  over.     Uq  is  unseen,  and  hence  is 


V 


21  A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN. 

practically  considered  as  absent ;  and  what  is  absent  is 
easily  forgotten.  He  is  out  of  mind  because  He  is  out 
of  sight.  There  is  no  objection  to  giving  God  His  place, 
only  He  is  not  thought  of.  This  is  one  phase  of  the 
world's  forgetfulness  of  God. 

Then    again   there    have  been  times  and  literary 
schools,   in  which   God   was  continually  referred  to, 
and   His  name  used  in  an  impressive  manner,  some- 
times reverently  and  sometimes  irreverently.     He  has 
been  a  fashionable  figure  of  speech,  or  an   adornment 
of  eloquence,  or  the  culminating  point  of  an  oratorical 
climax.     Or  there  has  been  a  decency  in  naming  Him 
honourably,   as  if  it  were  burning  a  kind  of  incense 
before  Him.     It  soothes    the  conscience ;  it  gives  an 
air  of  religion  to  us,  and  it  enhances  our  own  respect- 
ability, especially  in  the  eyes  of  our  inferiors.      And 
yet  this  word  God  has  not  in  reality  meant  the  Three 
Divine  Persons,  as  the  Gospel  reveals  them  to  us.     It 
has  been  an  imaginary  embodiment  or  a  vague  canoni- 
zation of  an  immense  power,  of  distant  majesty,  and  of 
unimaginable  mystery ;  a  something  like  the  beauty  of 
midnight  skies,  or  the  niaguificent  pageant  of  the  storm, 
elevating  the  thoughts,  quelling  and  tranquillizing  little- 
ness, and  ministering  to  that  poetry  in  our  nature  which 
is  so  often  mistaken  for  real  worship  and  actual  religion. 
The  ideas  of  duty,  of  precept,  of  sacrifice,  of  obedience, 
have  been  very  indistinctly  in  the  mind,  if  they  have  been 
there  at  all.     It  is  the  notion  of  a  grand   God,  rather 
than  a  living  God.     The  multitude  of  His  rights  over 
us,  the  dread  exorbitance  of  His  sovereignty,  the  reali- 
ties of  His  minute  vigilance,  of  His  jealous  expectations, 
of  His  rigid  judgments,  of  His  particular  providence,  of 
His  hourly   interference,   these  things  have  not   been 
denied,  but  they  have  not  been  part  of  the  idea  wakened 


A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN    OLD  SIN.  25 

in  the  mind  by  the  word  God.      The   close   embrace 
and  tingling  pressure  of  His  omnipresence,  as  theology 
discloses  it  to  us,  would  have  made  the  men,  of  whom 
we  are   speaking,  start  away  in  alarm  or  in  disgust. 
The  God  who  demands  an  account  of  every  idle  word, 
and  measures  His  penalties  to  each  unbridled  thought, 
and  before  whom  all  men  are  simply  and  peremptorily 
equal,  is  a  different  Being  from  the  poetical  sovereign 
who  reigns  over  the  Olympus  of  modern  literature,  to 
keep  our  inferiors  in  check,  to  add  gravity  to  our  rebukes, 
to  foster  our  own  self-respect,  and,  in  a  word,  to  "  point 
a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale.''     This  God  is  rather  our  crea- 
ture than  our  Creator  ;  He  is  the  creature  of  moral  re- 
spectability, the  necessity  of  a  dissatisfied  conscience,  the 
convenience  of  a  social  police,  the  consolation  of  an  un- 
supernatural  sorrow,  and  the  imagery  of  a  chaste  and 
elegant   literature.      Yet  the   atheism   of  this  is   not 
explicit:  it  is  only  implied.      No   revolt  is   intended. 
A  false  God  has  slipped  into  the  place  of  the  true  one ; 
and  because  their  faith  had  failed,  men  did  not  see  tho 
change,  and  do  not  see  it  still.     This  is  another  com- 
mon form  of  forgetfulness  of  God;   but  it  does  not  seem 
to  have  the  peculiar  characteristics  or  particular  malice 
of  the  form  which  we  suppose  to  belong  eminently  to 
our  own  days.    For  in  the  form,  of  which  we  have  been 
sneaking,  the  name  of  God  was  a  necessity  just  because 
men  did  not  forget  that  they  were  creatures.    Nay,  it 
was    respectable    and   moral   to    speak   slightingly    of 
human  nature,  its  weaknesses,  and  its  vagaries,  and  to 
say  great  things  of  the  far-off  God.     Men's  notions  of 
God  wanted   correcting   and  purifying,  enlarging  and 
heightening;  above  all,  they  wanted  to  be  made  real, 
and  brought  home  to  them,  and  laid  as  a  yoke  upou 
them.    Nevertheless  they  remembered  they  were  crea- 


26  A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN. 

tures;  only,  because  they  had  lost  the  true  idea  of  the 
Creator,  they  made  the  weaknesses  of  the  creature  an 
apology  for  his  sin,  and  so  went  desperately  astray. 

But  if  we  mistake  not,  the  characteristic  malice  o£ 
these  times  takes  a  somewhat  different  direction.  God 
is  certainly  ignored;  but  He  is  rather  passively  than 
actively  ignored,  rather  indirectly,  than  directly.  Men 
do  not  look  at  His  side  of  the  question  at  all.  They  do 
not  pass  Him  over,  even  contemptuously.  Still  less  do 
they  look  at  Him,  and  then  put  Him  away.  They  are 
otherwise  engaged.  They  are  absorbed  in  the  contem- 
plation of  themselves.  Theories  of  progress  and  per- 
fectibility throw  so  much  dust  in  their  eyes,  that  they 
do  not  see  that  they  are  creatures.  They  do  not  know 
what  it  is  to  be  a  creature,  nor  what  comes  of  it.  Hence 
the  idea  of  God  grows  out  of  their  minds:  it  is  thrust 
out  of  them,  extruded  as  it  were,  by  the  press  of  matter, 
without  any  direct  process  or  conscious  recognition  on 
their  parts.  Their  minds  are  purely  atheist  by  the 
force  of  terms.  They  are  the  proprietors  of  the  world, 
not  tenants  in  it,  and  tenants  at  will.  They  hardly 
suspect  that  there  are  any  claims  on  them.  God  was  a 
fine  thought  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  religion  an  organ- 
ized priestcraft,  which  was  not  alwajs  simply  an  evil : 
but  which  has  now  outlived  any  rractical  utilities  it 
may  ever  have  had.  God  is  subjective :  He  is  an  idea, 
He  is  the  creature  of  man's  mind.  If  there  be  any  real 
truth  in  religion,  it  must  be  looked  for  in  the  direction 
of  pantheism.  But  the  world  is  too  busy  to  think  much 
even  of  that.  This  is  practically  their  view,  or  would 
be,  if  they  took  the  trouble  to  have  a  view  at  all.  What 
it  comes  to  is  this.  Men  are  masters.  They  begin  and 
end  witli  themselves.  Humanity  marches  onwards  with 
grand  strides  to  the  magnificent  goal  of  social  perfec- 


A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN.  27 

tibility.  Each  generation  is  a  glorious  section  of  the 
procession  of  progress.  Liberty,  independence,  speed, 
association,  and  self-praise,  these  compose  the  spirit  ol 
the  modern  world.  The  word  creature  is  a  name,  an 
affair  of  classification,  like  the  title  of  a  genus  or  a 
species  in  natural  history.  But  it  has  no  religious  con- 
sequences: it  entangles  us  in  no  supernatural  relations. 
It  simply  means  that  we  are  not  eternal,  the  remem- 
l  ranee  of  which  is  salutary,  in  that  it  quickens  our  dili- 
gence in  the  pursuit  of  material  prosperity. 

All  phases  of  civilization  have  a  monomania  of  their 
own.  Certain  favourite  ideas  come  uppermost,  and  are 
regarded  with  so  much  favour  that  an  undue  importance 
is  given  to  them,  until  at  last  the  relative  magnitudes 
of  truths  and  duties  are  lost  sight  of,  and  the  ethics 
of  the  day  are  full  of  a  confusion  that  only  rights  itself 
in  the  failure  and  disappointment,  in  which  each  age  oi 
the  world  iniallibly  issues  at  the  last.  Then  comes  a 
reaction,  and  a  new  phase  of  civilization,  and  a  fresh 
monomania ;  and  either  because  the  circle  looks  like  a 
straight  line,  because  we  see  so  little  of  it  at  a  time,  or 
because  the  living  world,  like  the  material  one,  really 
advances  while  it  revolves,  we  call  theso  alternations 
j;ress.  Now  we  generally  find  that  each  of  these 
monomanias,  with  its  cant  words,  its  fixed  ideas,  and 
its  onesided  exaggerations,  transfers  its  temper  and 
characteristics  to  the  view  which  it  takes  of  God.  The 
ideas  of  liberty,  progress,  independence,  social  contracts, 
rej  resentative  government,  and  the  like,  colour  our 
views  of  God,  and  influence  our  philosophy.  No  one 
can  read  much  without  seeing  how  the  prevailing  ideas 
of  the  day  make  men  fall  into  a  sort  of  unconscious 
anthropomorphism  about  God.  Indeed  nothing  but 
the   magnificent  certainties  and  unworldly  wisdom   of 


28  A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN. 

catholic  theology  can  rescue  us  from  falling  into  soma 
such  error  ourselves.*  At  the  present  day  particularly 
we  should  be  careful  and  jealous  in  the  view  we  take  of 
God,  careful  that  it  should  be  well  ascertained,  and 
jealous  that  it  should  be  according  to  the  pattern  showed 
us  in  catholic  theology.f 

In  whatever  direction  we  turn  we  shall  gain  fresh 
proof  of  the  want  of  this  true  view  of  God,  and  fresh 
evidence  that  the  peculiar  forgetfulness  of  God  in  these 

«  The  gibe  of  Voltaire  is  after  all  full  of  bitter  truths ;  depuis  que  Dieu  a 
i'ait  l'uomme  a  sou  image,  l'homme  le  lui  a  bieu  rendu. 

t  There  are  two  views  of  God  in  theology,  the  Scotist  and  the  Thomist. 
The  Scotist  seems  to  bring  God  nearer  to  us,  to  muke  our  conceptions  of  Him 
more  real,  to  represent  Him  as  more  accessible  to  our  understandings,  even 
while  He  remains  incomprehensible.    St.  Thomas   carefully  observes  the 
mean:  Nullum  nomen  univoce  de  Deo  et  creaturis  praedicatur;   sed  nee 
etiain  pure  equivoce,  ut  aliqui  dixerunt:  and  again,  Aliqua  dicuntur  de  Deo 
et  creaturis,  analogice,  et  non  equivoce  pure,  neque  pure  univoce,  i  q.  xiii. 
5  and  6.    The  Thomist  view,  by  driving  us  away  from  many  of  the  analogies 
on  which  the  other  view  rests,  or  by  regarding  these  analogies  as  more 
equivocal,  seems  to  put  God  further  from  us,  and  to  thicken  the  darkness 
which  is  round  His  throne.    But,  if  the  Scotist  view  seems  more  directly  to 
lead  to  love,  it  is  exposed  to  much  greater  philosophical  dangers  than  the 
Thomist,  and  may  more  easily  be  pressed  into  the  service  of  anthropomor- 
phism, perhaps  of  pantheism.    Thus  the  Thomist  view  is  safer.    "  You  ought 
to  know,"  says  Malebranche,  (Huitieme  Entretien  sur  la  Metaphysique,  sec.  7.} 
"that  to  judge  worthily  of  God,  we  must  attribute  to  Him  no  attributes,  but 
those  which  are  incomprehensible.    This  is  evident,  for  God  is  the  infinite 
in  every  sense,  so  that  nothing  finite  is  congruous  to  Him,  and  that  which  is 
infinite  in  every  sense  is  in  every  way  incomprehensible  to  the  human 
mind."    So  also  Tertullian  adv.  Marcion,  i.  4.    Suinmnm  Magnum,  ex  defec- 
tions aemuli  solitudinem  quandara  de  singula;  itate  praestantiae  suae  possidens, 
unicum  est.    So  it  has  been  well  observed  by  Simon  in  his  beautiful  but 
insidious  work  on  natural  religion,  (Religion  Naturelle,  48)  that  we  almost  all 
of  us  start  from  the  Christian  idea  of  God,  as  author  of  the  world,  and  land  at 
the  pagan  idea  of  God  like  ourselves.  All  beings,  except  God.  are  in  a  system. 
It  is  their  nature  and  condition.  He  alone  is  outside  of  and  above  all  system ; 
and  thus  by  applying  to  Him  our  principles,  we  run  into  contsadictions,  and 
by  attributing  to  Him  our  faculties,  we  become  entangled  in  Impossibilities. 
Thus  a  clear  and  intelligent  view  of  God  is  one  of  the  first  requisites  for  aU 
of  us  at  this  day;  and  it  is  just  this  view  which  the  catholic  catechism 
gives,  and  which  all  the  wise  men  of  the  world  seem  so  unaccountably 
to  miss. 


A  NEW  FASHION  OP  A\T  OLD  SIN.  29 

times  consists  in  the  forgetfulness  on  our  own  part  that 
we  are  creatures.     For,  think  in  what  this  forgetfulness 
consists.     It  is  the  new  fashion  of  an  old  sin.     Nothing 
offends  our  taste  more  than  disproportion,  or  unseemli- 
ness.    "We  like  things  to  be  in  keeping,  and  when  pro- 
prieties are  violated,  we  have  a  sense  of  being  wounded. 
If  a  servant  puts  on  the  manners  and  takes  the  liberties 
of  a  son,  we  are  angry  with  him  because  he  forgets 
himself,  and  a  whole  string  of  moral  faults  is  involved 
in  this  forgetfulness.     The  manners,  which  befit   the 
members  of  our  own  family,  are  unbecoming  in  a  guest ; 
and  the  demeanour  and  address  of  a  stranger  differ  from 
those  of  an  acquaintance.     Our  taste  is  annoyed  when 
these  things  are  confused,  and   the  annoyance  of  our 
taste  is  only  the  symptom  of  something  far  deeper  in  our 
moral  nature.     So  is  it  in  the  matter  we  are  discussing. 
Tne  propriety  of  man  as  man,  his  moral  and  religious 
j  ropriety,  consists  in  his  constantly  remembering  that 
lie  is  a  creature,  and  demeaning  himself  accordingly. 
The  bad  taste  and  vulgarity  (to  use  words  which  may 
make  the  meaning  clearer)  of  his  not  doing  so  are  in 
reality  sin  and  irreligion,  because  the  contempt,  pre- 
sumption, and  affectation,  fall  upon  the  majesty  of  the 
Most  High  God.     Yet  is  not  this  forgetfulness  quite  a 
characteristic  of  the  times  in  which  we  live?. 

Look  at  politics ;  and  may  we  not  read  evidences  of 
this  spirit  everywhere?  How  little  has  religion  to  do 
with  questions  of  peace  and  war?  We  go  to  war  to 
avenge  an  offence,  or  to  push  an  interest,  or  to  secure  a 
gain,  or  to  cripple  a  hostile  power,  as  if  there  were  no 
God  of  Hosts.  We  do  not  ask  ourselves  the  question 
whether  it  is  God's  will  that  there  should  be  such  a 
war.  The  whole  action  of  diplomacy  is  as  if  there  were 
no  special  providence,  and  as  if  God  having  retired  from, 


80  A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN. 

the  management  of  the  world,  we  must  take  up  the 
reins  which   He  has  let  fall  from  His  wearied  grasp. 
Since   the  balance  of  power  was  substituted  for  the 
central  unity  of  the  Holy  See,  we  have  come  more  and 
more  to  act  as  if  the  world  belonged  to  us,  and  we  had 
the  management  of  it,  and  were  accountable  to  none. 
On  the  most  solemn  subjects,  even  those  of  education, 
and  religion,  and  the  interests  of  the  poor,  how  little  of 
the  tone  and  feeling  of  creatures  is  exhibited  in  debates 
in  parliament,  or  in  the  leading  articles  of  a  newspaper. 
It  would  seem  as  if  there  were  nothing  we  had  not  the 
right  to  do,  because  nothing  we  had  not  the  power  to 
do.     With  far  less  of  intentional  irreligion  than  would 
have  seemed  possible  beforehand,  there  is  an  incalcula- 
ble amount   of    forgetfulness    that   we   are   creatures. 
What  else  is  our  exaggerated  lust  of  liberty?     What 
else  are  even  the  vauntings  of  our  patriotism?     What 
else  is  the  spirit  of  puerile  self-laudation  into  which  our 
national  character  seems  in  the  hands  of  an  anonymous 
press  to  have  already  degenerated,  or  to  be  fast  degen- 
erating? 

The  same  tone  is  observable  in  our  poetry  and  elegant 
literature.  Everywhere  man  is  his  own  end,  and  the 
master  of  his  own  destiny.  Subordination  and  a  subject 
spirit  are  not  virtues,  neither  in  works  of  fiction  do  the 
meek  inherit  the  earth.*  Still  more  strongly  does  this 
come  out  in  systems  of  philosophy.  Humanity  is  a 
person  with  a  unique  destination  and  perfectibility. 
Man  is  complete  in  himself.  There  is  neither  wreck 
nor  ruin  about  him.  The  natural  stands  off,  clear  and 
self-helpful,  from  the  supernatural.     Accountableness 

*  E.  O.  see  Kinggley's  Two  Years  Ago,  a  work  by  an  Anglican  clergyman, 
propounding  what  the  Saturday  Review  satirically  termed  a  "  mu*oulnv 
Christianity  •" 


A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN.  31 

is  not  a  necessary  part  of  selfgovernment.  There  is  no 
need  to  call  in  the  idea  of  God  in  order  to  explain  the 
situation  of  man.  His  duties  begin  and  end  with  other 
men  or  with  himself.  Philosophically  speaking,  things 
can  be  managed  at  Berlin  without  God. 

But  of  all  things  the  most  amazing  is  the  innocent^ 
childlike,  simple-hearted  atheism  of  physical  science. 
The  beginning  of  matter,  the  elements  into  which  it 
may   utimately  be   resolvable,  how  the  cycles  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  first  began,  the  unspeakable  intricacy 
of  their  checks  and  counterchecks,  the  secular  aberra- 
tions and  secular  corrections  of  the  same,  the  secret 
of  life,  the  immateriality  of  the  soul,  where  physical 
science  ends, — all  these  questions  are  discussed  in  a 
thousand  books  in  a  spirit  and  tone  betokening  the  most 
utter  forgetfulness  that  we  are  little  creatures,  who  got 
here,  God  help  us!  not  by  our  own  means,   and  are 
going,  God  help  us!  where  He  chooses  and  when.     We 
read  sentence  after  sentence,  expecting  every  moment 
to  liMit  on  the  word  God,  or  to  come  across  some  allu- 
sion to  the  Creator.     And  the  writers  would  not  omit 
Him,  but  would  speak  good  words  of  Him,  if  it  came 
to  them  to  do  so.     But  it  does  not.     They  are  not 
unbelievers.     Nay,  they   would   loudly   profess   them- 
selves to  be  creatures  and  to  have  a  Creator,  if  they 
Tere  asked.     They  would  be  lunatics  if  they  did  not. 
But   the   double   sense   of  His  creation  and   of  their 
createdness  (to  coin  a  word)  is  not  in  all  their  thoughts, 
and  has  not  mastered  the  current  of  their  intellectual 
activity.     They  left  God  at  church  yesterday,  and  aro 
closeted   with   matter   to-day.      So    many    secondary 
causes  are  waiting  for  an  audience  that  their  time  is 
fully  occupied.     Besides,  is  there   not  one  day  in  the 
week  fixed  for  the  reception  of  the  First  Cause,  and  tho 


• 


32  A  NEW  FASHION  OP  AN  OLD  SIN. 

acknowledgment  of  His  claims?  But,  to  be  serious, 
no  one  we  think  will  say  that  modem  science,  at  least 
in  England,  is  profane  and  irreligious.  Really  it  is 
most  creditably  the  contrary..  It  is  ourselves  whom  we  • 
forget:  we  forget  that  we  are  creatures.  Our  error 
about  God  comes  from  a  mistake  about  ourselves. 

There  are  many  persons  in  these  days  who  do  not  say 
they  are  not  Christians ;  yet  who  write  and  speak  as  it 
were  from  without,  as  if  they  were  at  once  Christians, 
and  not  Christians.     They  have  not  taken  the  pains  to 
formulize  a  positive  disbelief;  but  they  do  not  see  how 
progress,  and  perfectibility,  and  modern  discovery,  psy- 
chological or  otherwise,  comport  with  that  collection  of 
ancient  dogmas  which  make  up  the  Christian  religion, 
and  their  instinct  would  be  to  give  up  the  dogmas  rather 
than  the  discoveries,  and  that  with  a  promptitude  wor- 
thy of  modern  enlightenment.     With  such  persons  the 
dignity  of  man  is  a  matter  of  prime  consideration,  while, 
in  their  view,  his  assent  to  the  doctrines  and  practices 
of  the  Church  is  as  degrading  to  his  intellectual  nobility, 
(is  his  obedience  to  them  is  superstitious  and  debasing. 
The  pope  and  theology,  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  the 
Saints,  grace  and  the  sacraments,  penance  and  purga- 
tory, scapulars  and  rosaries,  asceticism  and  mysticism, 
combine  to  form  a  perfectly  distinct  and   cognizable 
character.     They  give  a  tone  to  the  mind  and  a  fashion 
to  the  conduct,  which  is  indubitable,  and  which  it  is 
difficult  to  mistake.     In  the  Church  such  a  character 
is  held  in  honour.     It  is  the  catholic  type  of  spiritual 
beauty.     But  the  men,  of  whom  we  are  speaking,  are 
far  from  holding  it  in  esteem.     To  them  it  appears 
mean,   weak,   tame,    contemptible,   cowardly,  narrow,, 
pusillanimous.     It  wants  the  breadth   and   daring  ot, 
moral  greatness,  according  to  their  view  of  greatness.. 


A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN.  33 

Nothing  granJ,  lasting,  or  spreading  will  come  of  it. 
But  let  us  put  out  of  view  for  the  moment  the  un- 
doubted agents  in  the  formation  of  this  character,  the 
pope  and  theology,  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  the  Saints, 
graco  and  the  sacraments,  penance  and  purgatory,  rosa- 
ries and   scapulars,  asceticism  and  mysticism.     Let  us 
take  the  character  as  we  find  it,  without  enquiring  into 
the  process  of  its  formation.     Granting  that  there  is  a 
God,   eternal  and  all-holy,  granting  that  we  are  H13 
creatures,  created  simply  for  His  glory,  dependent  upon 
Him    for   all    things,   and   without    any   possibility    of 
happiness  apart  from  Him,  granting  His  perfections  and 
our  imperfections,  is  not  the  behaviour,  the  demeanour, 
of  a  catholic  saint,  precisely  what  would  come  of  a 
wise  and  reflective  apprehension  of  the  fact  that  he  is  a 
creature  and  has  a  Creator  ?     Does  not  Christian  sanc- 
tity with  inimitable  gracefulness  express  to  the  life  the 
modest,  truthful,  prevailing  sense  that  we  are  creatures, 
standing  before  the  eve  and  living  in  the  hand  of  our 
everlasting  Creator  ?     And  are  not  the  selfsufficiency, 
the  daring,  the  vainglory,  the  speed,  the  unhesitating- 
ness,  the  reckless  manners,  which  many  esteem  to  be 
moral  and  intellectual  bravery,  just  so  many  evidences 
of  forgetfulness  that  we  are  creatures  ?     Are  they  not 
vagaries  and  improprieties,  which,  to  put  out  of  sight 
their  falsehood  and  their  criminality,  are  as  if  a  worm 
would  fain  attempt  to  flj  or  a  monkey  to  ape  the  man- 
ners of  a  man  ?     It  is  not  true  that  the  practices  and 
devotions   and   sacramental  appliances  of  the  Church 
introduce  something  which  is  incongruous  and  out  of 
keeping,  something  to  be  added  to  our  human  life,  but 
still  an  addition  easily  discernible,  and  not  dovetailing 
into  our  natural  position.     On  the  contrary  the  manners 
v/iicl)  they  form  are  simply  the  most  perfect,  the  most 
3      f 


34  A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN. 

Graceful,  the  most  sensible  ami  self-consistent  exhibition 
of  our  indubitable  condition,  that  of  finite  and  dependent 
creatures.  The  supernatural  grace,  of  which  these 
practices  are  the  channels,  at  once  completes  and 
restores  our  nature,  and  makes  us  eminently  and  win- 
ningly  natural.  If  Christianity  were  not  true,  the  con- 
duct of  a  wise  man,  who  acted  consistently  as  a  creature 
who  had  a  Creator,  would  strangely  resemble  the 
behaviour  of  a  catholic  saint.  The  lineaments  of  the 
catholic  type  would  be  discernible  upon  him,  though  his 
gifts  would  not  be  the  same. 

This  forgetfulness  that  we  are  creatures,  which  pre- 
vails in  that  energetically  bad  portion  of  the  world 
which  is  scripturally  called  the  world,  affects  multitudes 
of  persons,  who  are  either  less  able  to  divest  themselves 
of  the  influences  of  old  traditions  and  early  lessons,  or 
fire  happily  less  possessed  with  the  base  spirit  of  the 
world.  It  leads  them  to  form  a  sort  of  religion  for 
themselves  which  singularly  falls  in  with  all  the  most 
corrupt  propensities  of  our  hearts :  a  religion  which  i\i 
effect  teaches  that  we  can  live  two  lives  and  serve  two 
masters.  Such  persons  consider  that  religion  has  its  own 
sphere,  and  worldly  interests  their  sphere  also,  and  that 
'the  one  must  not  interfere  with  the  other.  Thus  their 
tendency  is  to  concentrate  all  the  religion  of  the  week 
•into  Sunday,  and  to  conceive  that  they  have  thereby 
purchased  a  right  to  a  large  conscience  for  the  rest  of 
the  week.  The  world,  say  they,  has  its  claims  and 
God  has  His  claims.  Both  must  be  satisfied  ;  God  first, 
and  most  scrupulously  ;  then  the  world,  not  less  exactly, 
though  it  be  indeed  secondary.  But  it  is  not  a  "  reason- 
able service"  to  neglect  one  for  the  other.  God  and 
-the  world  are  coordinate  powers,  coordinate  fountains 
of  moral  duty  and  obligation.     He  is  the  really  religious 


A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN.  85 

mnn  who  gives  neither  of  them  reason  to  complain. 
We  must  let  our  common  sense  hinder  us  from  becom- 
ing over-righteous.  Men  who  hold  this  doctrine,  a 
doctrine  admirably  adapted  for  a  commercial  country, 
have  a  great  advantage  over  the  bolder  men  of  whom 
we  spoke  before.  For  they  enjoy  all  the  practical  laxity 
of  unbelievers,  without  the  trouble  or  responsibility  of 
disbelieving;  and  besides  that,  they  enjoy  a  certain 
good-humour  of  conscience  in  consequence  of  the  out- 
ward respect  they  pay,  in  due  season  and  fitting  place, 
to  the  ceremonies  of  religion. 

Hitherto  we  have  spoken  of  classes  of  persons  in  whom 
tfe  take  no  interest,  further  than  the  sorrow  which  all 
who  love  God  must  feel  at  seeing  Him  defrauded  of 
His  honour,  and  all  who  love  their  fellowmen  in  seeing 
so  much  amiability,  so  much  goodness,  with  a  millstone 
round  its  neck  which  must  inevitably  sink  it  in  the 
everlasting  deeps.    Let  us  come  now  to  those  with  whom 
we  are  very  much  concerned  ;  and  for  whom  we  have 
ventured  to  compose  this  little  treatise.     Errors  filter 
from  one  class  of  men   into   another,  and   appear   in 
different  forms  according  to  the  new  combinations  into 
which  they  enter.     We  are  all  of  us  more  affected  by 
the   errors   which   prevail   around    us  than   we  really 
6uppose.     Almost  every  popular  fallacy  has  its  repre- 
sentative even  among  the  children  of  faith  ;  and  as  when 
a  pestilence  is  raging,  many  are   feeble   and   languid 
though  they  have  no  plague-spot,  so  is  it  in  matters 
of  religion.     The   contagion  of   the  world   does   us  a 
mischief  in  many  ways  of  which  we  are  hardly  con- 
scious ;  and  we  often  injure  ourselves  in  our  best  and 
highest  interest  by  views-  and  practices,  to  which   wo 
cling  with  fatal  obstinacy,  little  suspecting  the  relation- 
ship in  which  they  stand  to  widely  spread  evils,  which 


S$  A  NEW.  FAS  HION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN. 

we  behold  in  their  naked  deformity  in  other  sections 
of  society,  and   hold  up  to  constant  reprobation.     Tho 
forgetfulness  that  we  are  creatures,  which  produces  tie 
various   consequences    already   mentioned,  is  au  error 
which  is  less  obviously  hateful  than  a  direct  forgetful- 
ness  of  God,  and  consequently  it  wins  its  way  into  holy 
places  where   the  other  would  find  no  admittance,  or 
scant  hospitality.     Good   Christians  hear  conversation 
around  them,  catch  the  prevailing  tone  of  society,  read 
boohs,  and  become  familiarized  with  certain  fashionablo 
principles   of  conduct ;    and  it  is  impossible  for  their 
minds   and   hearts   not   to   become  imbued   with   tho 
genius  of  all  this.     It  is  irksome  to  be  always  on  our 
guard,  and  from  being  off  our  guard  we  soon  grow  to 
be  unsuspicious.     When  a  catholic  enters  into  intimate 
dealings  with  protestants,  he  must  not  forget  to  place 
bis  sentries,  and  to  act  as  if  he  was  in  an  enemy's 
country ;  and  this  is  unkindly  work,  and  as  miserable 
as  it  is  unkindly.     Yet  so  it  is.     When  newspapers  tell 
us  that  Catholicism  is  always  more  reasonable  and  less 
superstitious  when  it  is  in  the  immediate  presence  of 
protestantism,  they  indicate  something  which  they  have 
observed,  namely,  a  change.     Now  if  our  religion  be 
changed  by  protestantism,  we  can  have  little  difficulty 
in  deciding  whether  it  has  changed  for  the  better  or 
the  worse.     All  this  illustrates  what  we  mean.     The 
prevailing  errors  of  our  time  and  country  find  their 
way  down  to  us,  and  corrupt  our  faith,  and  lower  our 
practice,  and  divide  us  among  ourselves.     This  un- 
etartling  error  of  forgetting  that  we  are  creatures  is 
thus  not  without  grave  influence   upon   conscientious 
catholics;  and  it  is  to  this  point  that  we  are  asking 
your  attention. 
It  is  beyond  all  question  among  Christians  that  there 


A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN.  87 

dre  such  things  in  religion  as  the  counsels  of  perfection, 
and  that  the  true  way  of  serving  God  is  to  do  so  out  of 
love.  No  one  doubts  but  that  a  saint  is  a  man  who 
loves  God  ardently  and  tenderly,  who  attempts  great 
thiDgs  for  His  honour,  and  makes  painful  sacrifices  to 
promote  His  glory.  No  one  imagines  a  saint  to  be  one 
who  does  no  more  than  he  is  obliged  to,  and  who, 
having  just  avoided  mortal  sin,  is  careless  about  venial 
faults,  and  takes  his  ease  and  liberty  outside  the  verga 
of  strict  and  certain  precepts.  The  Church  possesses 
a  whole  literature  which  is  occupied  with  nothing  else 
than  teaching  these  principles  of  Christian  perfection, 
as  they  are  called.  Many  of  these  books,  such  as  the 
Imitation  of  Christ,  are  in  such  repute  that  it  would 
be  rash  and  presumptuous  to  question  what  they  teach  ; 
and  there  are  others  of  the  very  highest  spirituality, 
such  as  the  works  of  St.  Theresa  and  St.  John  of  the 
Cross,  to  which  the  Church  has  given  her  most  solemn 
approval.  Persons  accustomed  to  the  perusal  of  these 
books  regard  the  axioms  on  which  their  teaching  is 
based  as  almost  selfevident.  They  know  on  the  au- 
thority of  the  church  that  there  ought  not  to  be  two 
opinions  on  the  matter;  but  even  independently  of  that, 
they  cannot  conceive  as  a  matter  of  common  sense  how 
there  can  possibly  be  two  opinions  about  it.  Even  if 
men  might  go  wrong  on  such  a  question,  how  could  they 
do  so  in  point  of  fact  ? 

Nevertheless,  there  are  numbers  of  catholics,  who, 
strange  to  say!  see  the  question  in  a  different  light. 
The  teaching  of  spiritual  books  and  the  doctrines  of 
perfection,  as  laid  down  by  the  most  approved  writers, 
do  not  recommend  themselves  to  them.  They  consider 
that,  unless  they  are  under  the  vows  of  some  monastic 
order,  they  should  aim  at  nothing  more  than  the  avoid- 


88  A  NEW  FASHION  OP  AN  OLD  SIN. 

ing  of  mortal  8iD,  and  giving  edification  to  those  around 
them.  They  are  good  people.  They  go  to  mass  ;  they 
aid  or  start  missions;  they  countenance  the  clergy; 
they  are  kind  to  the  poor ;  they  say  the  rosary ;  they 
frequent  the  sacraments.  Yet  when  any  one  talks  to 
them  of  serving  God  out  of  personal,  love  to  Him,  of 
trying  to  be  daily  more  and  more  closely  united  to 
Him,  of  cultivating  the  spirit  of  prayer,  of  constantly 
looking  out  to  see  what  more  they  can  do,  for  God, 
of  mortifying  their  own  will  in  things  allowable,  of 
disliking  the  spirit  of  the  world  even  in  manifestations 
of  it  which  are  short  of  sin,  and  of  living  more  con- 
sciously in  the  presence  of  God,  they  feel  as  if  they 
were  listening  to  an  unknown  language.  They  have  a 
jealousy,  almost  a  dislike,  of  such  truths,  quite  irre- 
spective of  any  attempt  being  made  to  force  such  a 
line  of  conduct  upon  themselves.  If  they  are  humble 
they  are  puzzled :  if  they  are  self-opinionated,  they  are 
angry,  critical,  or  contemptuous,  as  the  case  may  be. 
There  are  many  others  to  whom  such  views  are  simply 
new,  and  who  wTith  modestv  and  self-distrust  are  shaken 
by  them,  and  to  some  extent  receive  them.  Still  upon 
the  whole  such  doctrines  have  a  sound  in  their  ears 
of  being  ultra  and  extravagant,  of  poetical  and  fanciful, 
or  peculiar  and  eccentric. 

Now  ifc  must  be  beyond  a  doubt  to  any  catholic 
scholar  that  such  persons  are  completely  out  of  har- 
mony with  a  considerable  and  important  part  of  the 
catholic  system,  that  they  think  differently  from  the 
saints  and  holy  men,  and  that  a  great  deal  of  what 
the  church  has  approved  is  new,  startling,  and  per- 
haps displeasing  to  them.  This  is  a  very  strong  way 
of  putting  it ;  but  we  do  not  see  that  it  goes  beyond 
the  truth.     They  do  not  view  it  in  this  light  them- 


A  NEW  FASHION'  OF  AX  OLD  SIN.  03 

selves.     God  forbid !   but   this  is  what  it  comes  to  ia 
effect. 

Ia  speaking  of  unbelievers,  we  pointed  out  that  tho 
character  formed  by  the  peculiar  doctrines,  devotions, 
and  practices  of  the  catholic  church,  was  not  something 
monstrous,  or   exotic,  or  unnatural,    as    they   are  too 
often  in  the  habit  of  considering  it.    We  maintained  that 
it  rested  on  the  undeniable  common-sense  view  that  we 
are  creatures,  the  creatures  of  an   Almighty   Creator, 
and  that  a  man  who  acted  consistently   (if  unassisted 
nature  could  do  so,)  as  a  creature,  would  not  be  unlike 
a  catholic  saint:  always  excepting  the  practice  of  volun- 
tary mortification,  and  ail  the  shapes  of  love  of  suffer- 
ing, for  these  are  ideas  peculiar  to  the  kingdom  of  the 
Incarnation,  or  to  such  false  religions  as  retain  in  dis- 
torted shapes  great  portions  of  the  primitive  tradition 
which  prophesied  ot  the  expiation  of  sin  by  the  vicarious 
sufferings  of  a  Redeemer.     So  now  we  would  call  the 
ntion  of  the  good  people,  of  whom  we  are  at  present 
Bpeaking,  to  a  similar  fact.     The  doctrines  of  Christian 
perfection  and  the  teaching  of  approved  spiritual  books 
do  not  rest  upon  any  peculiarity  of  any  school  of  theo- 
logy, or  upon  any  special  spirit  of  a  religious  order,  or 
on  the  idiosyncrasy  of  any  particular  saint,  or  upon  any 
unusual  and  miraculous  vocation,  but  simply  on  the  fact 
of  our  being  creatures.     Even  the  practices  of  volun- 
tary penance  or  of  acquired  contemplation,  though  not 
of  obligation,  at  least  rise  naturally  and  easily  out  of  the. 
r"lations  in  which  we  every  one  of  us  stand  to  God  as  ou? 
Creator.    There  is  nothing  in  the  whole  range  of  ascetic 
cism,  which  does  not  turn  out  at  last,  to  be  a  natural 
and  logical  result  of  our  position  in  the  world  as  the  crea* 
tures  of  a  Creator:  and   henco  there  is  nothing  in  such 
practices  fanciful,  eccentric,  or  intritisiouUv  indiscreet: 


40  A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN. 

though  wrong  time,  wrong  place,  wrong  measure,  can 
make  anything  iudiscreet. 

From  this  fact  we  draw  two  inferences.  The  first 
is  that  the  strangeness  of  the  doctrines  of  spirituality 
to  these  excellent  persons  is  attributable,  without  their 
knowing  it,  to  the  prevailing  forgetfulness  that  we  are 
creatures.  They  are  unsuspectingly  influenced  by  the 
very  evil  which  gives  its  tone  and  colour  to  the  un- 
belief and  worldliness  of  the  times.  They  have  no 
distinct  conception  of  the  relation  in  which  their  being 
creatures  places  them  with  regard  to  the  Creator,  nor 
of  what  comes  of  it  in  the  way  of  practical  religion. 
It  lias  probably  never  occurred  to  them  that  it  was 
a  subject  which  needed  study.  Hence,  unprovided 
with  antidotes  to  the  poison  they  were  compelled  daily 
to  imbibe,  an  imperceptible  change  has  passed  upon 
them,  or  the  poison  of  the  error  has  been  beforehand 
with  the  truth,  or,  in  the  case  of  converts,  it  has 
troubled  the  processes  of  conversion,  and  stopped  them 
short  of  their  legitimate  completion:  for  almost  all 
enter  the  Church  only  half  converted,  and  several  re- 
main so  to  the  last.  Thus  they  have  come  as  it  wena 
by  instinct  to  rise  up  in  arms  against  a  claim  which  is 
urged  in  behalf  of  God.  Next  they  have  jealously 
examined  His  claims,  in  a  commercial  spirit,  and  with 
a  bias  towards  themselves.  Then  they  h  ive  put  limits 
to  His  service,  made  a  compromise  with  Him,  reduced 
Him  from  a  Creator  to  a  Being,  who  is  to  tax  and  to 
tythe,  and  no  more,  for  He  is  a  constitutional  monarch 
and  not  despotic,  and  they  have  come  to  regard  notions 
of  perfection  with  disfavour  as  an  unconstitutional 
aggression  on  the  part  of  God  or  His  executive.  Now 
every  one  of  these  six  processes  says  as  loudly  and 
plainly  as  it  can,   "  I  am  not  a  creature.     There  is 


A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN.  41 

60me  such  sort  of  equality  between  God  and  myself, 
as  that  I  am  entitled  to  come  to  terms  with  Him." 
Moreover  the  spirit  in  which  all  this  is  done  is  equally 
incompatible  with  the  modest  position  of  a  creature. 
It  is  as  if  they  were  the  judges,  as  if  they  possessed 
some  inalienable,  indefeasible  rights  of  their  own. 
There  is  no  diffidence,  no  self-distrust.  They  sea 
their  way  more  clearly,  and  assert  their  supposed 
liberty  more  positively,  than  they  would  do  in  matters 
which  concerned  the  claims  and  interests  of  their  fellow- 
citizens.  It  would  make  a  great  change,  we  will  not 
say  how  great^  in  them,  if  they  realized  and  clearly 
comprehended  the  relation  in  which  a  creature  necessa- 
rily as  a  creature,  stands  to  his  Creator. 

My  second  inference  is,  that,  as  the  doctrines  and 
practices  of  spirituality  rest  mainly  on  our  position  aa 
creatures,  and  entirely  on  our  position  as  redeemed 
creatures,  the  common  evasion  that  they  belong  to  tho 
cloister,  and  are  peculiar  to  monks  and  nuns,  will  not; 
hold  good  and  cannot  be  maintained.  A  monk  is  nob 
more  a  creature  than  a  soldier  or  a  sailor,  a  billiard- 
marker  or  a  jockey,  and  no  more  comes  out  of  hid 
relation  to  the  Creator  than  out  of  theirs.  There  may 
be  questions  of  degree  in  the  amount  different  men 
may  do  for  God ;  there  surely  can  be  none  as  to  the 
principles  on  which  and  the  spirit  in  which  He  is  to  bo 
served.  Monks  and  nuns  have  given  up  their  liberty 
by  the  heroism  of  vows.  They  are  obliged  to  the  prac- 
tices of  perfection,  or  to  apply  themselves  to  the  acqui- 
sition of  them.  Theirs  is  a  glorious  captivity  in  which 
supernatural  charity  has  bound  them  hand  and  foot, 
and  handed  them  over  to  the  arma  of  their  Creator. 
They  havo  used  the  original  liberty  He  gave  them  in 
the  grandest  of  ways,  by  voluntarily  surrendering  it. 


42  A  NEW  FASHION  OP  AN  OLD  SIN. 

All  then  that  distinguishes  the  Christian  in  his  family 
from  the  monk  in  his  community  is  his  liberty.     If  he 
is  to  serve  God  at  all  it  mu9t  be  on  the  same  principle 
as  the  monk.     There  are  not  two  spiritualities,  one  for 
the  world  and  one  for  the  cloister.     God  is  one  ;   God's 
character  is  one;  our  necessary  relation  to  Him  is  one. 
There  are  many  distinct  things  in  spirituality  to  which 
people  in  the  world  are  not  bound,  many  which  can 
with  difficulty  be  practised  in  the  world,  many  which 
it  would   be   unwise   for  most  persons  to  attempt  to 
practise   in    the  world,  and  some  which  it  would  be 
actually  impossible   to  practise  there.     But  whatever 
differences  there  may  be  in  the  amount  done  for  God, 
or  the  manner  of  doing  it,  or   the  obligations  undei 
which  it  is  done,  there  can    be   no   difference  in  the 
principle  on  which  it  is  done.     God  must  be  served 
out  of  love.     This  is  the  first  and  great  commandment. 
No  one  is  condemned  except  for  mortal  sin  ;  but  any  man 
who  starts  professedly  on  the  principle  that  he  will  do 
no  more  than  avoid  mortal  sin,  and   that  God  shall 
have  no  more  out  of  him,  will  infallibly  not  succeed 
in  his  single  object;  that  is  to  say,  he  will  not  avoid 
mortal  sin.     Though  he  is  not  bound  to  do  more  than 
this  in  order  to  secure  his  salvation,  yet  because  he  has 
gone  on  a  wrong  principle,  it  will,  just  because  it  is  a 
principle  and   not   merely  a   mistake  or  a  negligence, 
carry  him  far  further  than   he  intended,   and   end  by 
being   his  ruin.     He  will  fail  in  his  object,  because  he 
made  it  exclusively  his  object.     Love  is  the  sole  prin- 
ciple of  the  creature's  service  of  his  Creator,  however 
remiss  that  love  may  be.     Thus   then,   if  it   be   true 
that  the  doctrines  and  practices  of  Christian  perfection 
are  simply  based  on  God's  love  of  us  and  our  love  of 
Him,  that  is,  the  relation  between  the  creature  and  the 


A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  Bltf.  43 

Creator,  it  is  either  true  that  monks  are  more  God's 
creatures  than  we  are,  or  that,  in  our  measure  and 
degree,  the  principles  of  perfection  are  as  applicable  to 
ourselves  as  to  them. 

We  are  not  going  to  write  a  book  on  perfection.  Very 
far  from  it.  But  we  believe  that  the  ruling  spirit  of 
the  a^e  is  rather  a  forojetfulness  that  we  are  creatures, 
than  a  forgetfulness  of  the  Creator,  that  many  more 
persons  are  infected  with  this  evil  than  have  any  sus- 
picion of  it,  that  it  lies  at  the  bottom ',  of  all  the  objec- 
tions men  make  to  the  doctrines  of  spirituality,  and 
furthermore  that  many  more  persons  would  try  to 
serve  God,  would  frequent  the  sacraments,  avoid  sin, 
and  be  ordinarily  good  catholics,  if  they  had  a  clear 
view  of  the  relations  between  themselves  and  God,  a3 
creature  and  Creator.  Hence  we  are  undertaking  what 
may  seem  a  childish,  or  at  least  an  unnecessary,  work. 
We  wish  to  explain,  or  to  state  rather  than  to  explain, 
the  first  elements  of  all  practical  religion,  the  ABC 
of  devotion.  We  want  to  write  a  primer  of  piety  ;  and 
to  do  so  in  the  plainest,  easiest,  and  most  unadorned 
style.  The  experience  of  the  priesthood  has  led  us 
to  think  that  we  shall  serve  souls  by  putting  forward 
what  every  one  thinks  he  knows  already,  and  what  ho 
will  say  he  knew  before  as  soon  as  he  reads  it.  Never- 
theless these  common-places  are  not  so  well  known  as. 
they  should  be.  Their  very  commonness  leads  men 
to  overlook  them;  and  we  trust  that  not  a  few  readers, 
if  they  will  follow  us  patiently,  will  find  that  both  head 
and  heart  will  have  learned  not  a  little  in  the  study. 

All  our  duties  to  God,  and  to  ourselves  no  less,  are 
founded  on  the  fact  that  we  are  creatures.*     All  reli- 

•  Since  the  publication  of  the  first  Edition  of  this  work   the  follrwirig 
notice  has  appeared  in  the  Cronaca  Cuntcn-.poianea  of  the  Civile  Cattolica 


44  A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN. 

gion  is  based  on  the  sense  that  we  are  creatures.  Oar 
responsibilities  mean  that  we  are  creatures.  The  fool- 
ishness of  this  simple  truth  will  bring  to  nought  the 
pride  of  the  wise  world.  It  will  be  as  the  plain  stone 
of  the  common  brook  against  the  might  and  bravery 
of  the  giant  of  modern  misbelief.  We  speak  to  simple- 
hearted  believers.  We  put  no  high  things  before  them, 
but  rather  the  lessons  of  a  village  dame.  We  draw 
no  conclusions,  and  urge  no  definite  duties.  We  only 
ask  our  dear  readers  to  try  to  put  together  with  us  3 
fevir  obvious  matters  of  fact  about  our  heavenly  Father, 
and  then  leave  it  to  grace  and  our  own  hearts  what  is 
to  come  of  it  all.  We  will  therefore  ask  each  other 
some  such  questions  as  these— What  is  it,  as  children 
express  themselves,  what  is  it  to  be  a  creature? — What 
is  it  to  have  a  Creator? — Why  does  God  wish  us  to 
love  Him? — Why  does  He  love  us? — How  can  we  love 
Him? — How  do  we  repay  His  love  of  us? — How  doe3 
He  repay  our  love  of  Him  ? — Is  it  easy  to  be  saved? — 
And  what  becomes  of  the  great  multitude  of  believers? 
What,  if  when  we  put  our  answers  together,  some- 
thing new  and  striking  comes  of  it  all?  What  if  it 
warms  our  hearts,  and  moistens  our  eyes  ?     Anyhow  it 

for  October  17th,  1S57,  p.  240,  No.  clxxxii.  Mgr.  (now  Cardinal)  Pietro  de 
Silvestri,  Dean  of  the  S.  Rota,  maintained  an  erudite  argument  before  the 
Accademia  di  Religione  Cattolica,  intorno  alia  domma  di  Creazione.  He  shewed 
how,  at  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  the  Apostles'  Creed  began  by  proclaim- 
ing the  dogma  of  Creation;  and  that,  while  many  and  new  errors  arose  to 
combat  the  divine  revelation  every  heresy  was  in  fact  contained  in  Gnosti- 
cism, which,  nato  d'orgoglio  &c.  ..had  in  these  days  assumed  its  latest  form. 
Pantheism,  Whence  he  inferred  that  as  Gnosticism  nacque  dallo  sconoscere 
il  vero  della  Creazione,  cosi  ancora  per  combattere  i  moderni  increduli 
razionalistici  panteisti  si  dee  dagli  scrittori  cattolici  fare  ogni  sforzo  per 
inuttere  in  sodo  cotesto  domma  importantissimo  in  vece  di  perdersi  in  ques- 
tioni  seconJarie.  It  was  naturally  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  find  the  views  of 
this  chapter  expressed  by  an  authority  ao  much  higher  and  more  competent 
l-ua  my  uwu. 


A  NEW  FASHION  OF  AN  OLD  SIN.  45 

is  very  sweet  to  talk  of  God.  There  is  no  holyday  in 
the  world  like  it.  So,  dear  readers,  take  this  weary 
and  disagreeable  chapter  as  a  preface  to  something 
better,  something  easier,  simpler,  heartier  and  more 
loving;  and  let  us  begin,  as  little  children,  at'the  very 
beginnings 


46 


CHAPTER  II. 

WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

Si  homo  miile  annts  serviret  Deo  etiam  ferventissime.  non  riereretttf 
ex  condigno  dimidiam  diem  esse  in  regno  coelorum.— S.  Anselm. 

Let  us  sib  down  upon  the  top  of  this  fair  hill.     TI13 
clear  sunshine  and  the  bright  air  flow  into  us  in  streams 
of  life  and    gladness,    while   our   thoughts   are   lifted 
up  to  God,  and  our  hearts   quietly   expand   to  love. 
Beneath   us  is   that   beautiful   rolling   plain,   with   its 
dark  masses  of  summer  foliage  sleeping  in  the  sun  for 
miles  and  miles  away,  in  the  varying  shades  of  blue 
and  green,  according  to  the  distance   or   the  clouds. 
There  at  our  feet,  on  the  other  side,  is  the  gigantic  city, 
gleaming  with  an  ivory  whiteness  beneath  its  uplifted 
>but  perpetual  canopy  of  smoke.     The  villa-spotted  hills 
beyond  it,  its  almost  countless  spires,  its  one  huge  many- 
.eteepled  palace,  and  its  solemn  presiding  dome,  its  old 
bleached  tower,  and  its  squares  of  crowded  shipping — it 
all  lies  below  us  in  the  peculiar  sunshine  of  its  own 
misty  magnificence.     There,  in  every  variety  of  joy  and 
misery,  of  elevation  and  depression,  three  million  souls 
are   working  out   their  complicated  destinies.     Close 
around  us  the  air  is  filled  with  the  songs  of  rejoicing 
birds,  or  the  pleased  hum  of  the  insects  that  are  drink- 
ing the  sunbeams,  and  blowing  their  tiny   trumpets  as 
•they    weave   and   unweave   their   mazy   dance.      The 
flowers  breathe  sweetly,  and  the  leaves  of  the   glossy 
shrubs  are  spotted  with   bright  creatures  in  paiuted 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  EL  A  CBfcATUBE.  47 

surcoats  or  gilded  panoply,  while  the  blue  dome  above 
Beems  both  taller  and  bluer  than  common,  and  is 
lir^inn-  with  the  loud  peals  of  the  unseen  larks,  as  the 
steeples  of  the  city  ring  for  the  nation's  victory.  Fat 
off  from  the  ri?er  flat  comes  the  booming  of  the  cannon, 
and  here,  all  unstartled,  round  and  round  the  pond,  a 
fleet  of  young  perch  are  sailing  in  the  sun,  slowly  anl 
undisturbedly  as  if  they  had  a  very  grave  enjoyment  of 
their  little  lives.  What  a  mingled  scene  it  is  of  God 
and  man!  And  all  so  bright,  so  beautiful,  so  diversi- 
fied, so  calm,  opening  out  such  fountains  of  deep  reflec- 
tion, and  of  simple-hearted  gratitude  to  our  Heavenly 
Father. 

"What  is  our  uppermost  thought?  It  is  that  we 
live,  and  that  our  life  is  gladness.  Our  physical 
nature  unfolds  itself  to  the  sun,  while  our  mind  and 
heart  seem  no  less  to  bask  in  the  bright  influences  of 
the  thought  of  God.  Animate  and  inanimate,  reason- 
ing and  unreasoning,  organic  and  inorganic,  material 
and  spiritual — what  are  these  but  the  names  and  orders 
of  so  many  mysteries,  of  so  many  sciences,  which  are 
all  represented  in  this  sunny  scene?  We,  like  the 
beetles  and  the  perch,  like  the  larks  and  the  clouds,  like 
the  leaves  and  the  flowers,  like  the  smoke- wreaths  of 
the  cannon  and  the  surges  of  the  bells,  are  the  crea- 
tures of  the  One  True  God,  lights  and  shades  in  this 
creature- picture,  kith  and  kin  to  all  the  things  around 
\i3,  in  n<\ar  or  in  remote  degree.  How  did  we  come  to 
live  ?  Why  do  we  live  ?  How  do  we  live  ?  What  is 
our  life  ?  Where  did  it  come  from  ?  Whither  is  it 
going?  What  was  it  meant  for?  All  that  the  Bun 
shines  upon  is  real;  and  we  are  real  too.  Are  we  to 
be  the  beauty  of  a  moment,  part  of  earth's  gilding,  to 
rarm  ourselves  in  the  sun  for  awhile   and  glitter,  and 


43  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

add  to  tlio  hum  of  life  on  the  planet,  and  then  go 
away,  and  go  nowhere  ?  The  beautiful  day  makes  us 
happy,  with  a  childish  happiness,  and  it  sends  our 
thoughts  to  first  principles,  to  our  alphabet,  to  the 
beginnings  of  tilings. 

But  we  roust  commence  with  a  little  theology,  before 
we  can  fall  back  upon  the  simple  truths  of  the  catechism. 
We  are  not  on  safe  ground,  although  it  is  such  simple 
ground.     Baius,  Jansenius,  and  Quesnel  have  contrived 
eo  to  obscure  and  confound  and  divorce  the  orders  of 
nature  and  grace,  that  we  cannot  treat  at  any  length  of 
the  subject  of  creation,  unless  we  start  with  some  sort 
of  profession  of  faith.     Theologians,    in   order   to   get 
a  clear  view  of  the  matter,  consider  human  nature  as 
either  possible  or  actual  in  five  different  states.     The 
first  is  a  state  of  pure  nature.     In   this,  man   would 
have  been  created,  of  course  without  sin,  but  also  with- 
out sanctifying  grace,  without  infused  virtues,  and  with- 
out the  helps  of  a  supernatural  order.     None  of  these 
things  would  have  been  due   to   his   nature  regarded 
in  itself.     He  would  have  been  obnoxious  to  hunger  and 
thirst,   to  toil,  diseases  and  death,   because  his  nature 
is  compound  and  material,  and  contains  the  principles 
of  these  inconveniences  within  itself.     He  would  have 
been  subject  also  to  ignorance  and   to   concupiscence, 
and  his  happiness  would  have  consisted  in  his  know- 
ledge and  love  of  God  as  the  author  of  nature,  whose 
precepts  he  would  have  observed  by  means  of  what  is 
called   natural   grace.     This  natural  grace  requires   a 
word  of   explanation.     What  is  due  to  nature  we  do 
not  call  grace;  in  a  certain  sense  God  is  bound  to  give 
it  to  us.     But  He  is  not  bound  so  to  combine  secondary 
causes  that  the  right  thoughts  and  motives,  requisite 
for  us  to  govern  ourselves  and  controul  our  passions, 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  49 

should  rise  in  our  minds  at  the  right  time,  or  even  if 
such  assistance  were  due  to  nature  in  the  mass,  it  would 
not  perhaps  be  due  to  it  in  the  individual.  Neverthe- 
less we  suppose  such  an  assistance  to  be  essential  to  a 
state  of  pure  nature,  and  as  it  is  over  and  above  what 
our  nature  can  claim  of  itself,  we  call  it  grace,  but 
grace  of  the  natural,  not  of  the  supernatural  order.  In 
the  time  of  St.  Thomas  some  theologians  held  that  Adam 
was  created  in  this  state,  and  remained  in  it  for  a  time, 
until  he  was  subsequently  endowed  with  sanctifying 
grace,  and  raised  to  a  supernatural  end.  This  is  now 
however  universally  rejected.  Both  angels  and  men 
were  created  in  a  state  of  grace.  The  orders  of  nature 
and  grace,  though  perfectly  distinct  and.  on  no  account 
to  be  confused,  did  as  a  matter  of  fact  start  together 
in  the  one  act  of  creation,  without  any  interval  of  time 
between.  This  state  therefore  was  possible,  but  never 
actual. 

The  second  condition  of  human  nature  is  the  state  of 
integrity.  Baianism  and  Jansenism  regard  this  as  iden- 
tical with  the  state  of  pure  nature  ;  but  catholic  theology 
considers  it  as  endowed  with  a  certain  special  perfection, 
over  and  above  the  perfections  due  to  it  for  its  own 
sake  :  and  the  twenty-sixth  proposition  of  Baius  is  con- 
demned because  it  asserts  that  this  integrity  was  clue 
to  nature,  and  its  natural  condition.  It  consists  in  the 
perfect  subjection  of  the  body  to  the  soul,  and  of  the 
sensitive  appetite  to  the  reason,  and  thus  confers  upon 
man  a  perfect  immunity  from  ignorance,  concupiscence, 
and  death.  It  inserts  in  our  nature  a  peculiar  vigour 
by  which  this  glorious  dominion  of  the  soul  is  completed 
and  sustained,  while  the  tree  of  life,  it  is  supposed, 
would  have  preserved  the  material  part  of  our  nature 
4       t 


50  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

from  the  corroding  influence  of  age.*  Of  this  state  also 
we  may  say  that  it  was  possible  but  never  actual ; 
because,  while  it  is  true  of  Adam  as  far  as  it  goes,  he 
never  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  left  to  the  possession  of 
his  integrity  without  the  supernatural  addition  of  sancti- 
fy hi  S  grace. 

The  third  condition  of  human  nature  is  the  state  of 
innocence.  By  this,  Adam  in  the  first  instant  of  his 
creation,  or  as  some  say  immediately  afterwards,  had 
the  theological  and  moral  virtues,  and  the  gifts  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  infused  into  him,  inasmuch  as  he  was 
created  in  a  state  of  grace,  and  elevated  to  the  super- 
natural end  of  participating  in  the  beatitude  of  God  by 
the  Beatific  Vision.  He  was  likewise  endowed  with 
such  a  perfect  science  both  of  natural  and  supernatural 
things,  as  became  the  preceptor  and  ruler  and  head  of 
the  human  race ;  and  a  similar  science  would  have  been 
easily  acquired  by  his  descendants  in  a  state  of  inno- 
cence, though  as  they  would  not  have  been  the  heads 
of  the  race,  it  would  probably  not  have  been  infused 
into  them  from  the  first.  This  innocence  is  what  we 
call  original  justice,  to  express  by  one  word  the  aggre- 
gate of  gifts  and  habits  which  compose  it ;  and  what 
constituted  man  in  this  state  was  the  one  simple  quality 
of  sanctifying  grace,  by  which  the  soul  was  perfectly 
subject  to  God,  not  only  as  its  natural,  but  also  as  its 
supernatural  author.  This  is  the  teaching  of  the 
Church ;  whereas  the  heresies  of  Baius  and  Jansenius 

*  Here  theologians  differ.  Some  include  the  Immunity  from  disease  and 
death  in  the  state  of  integrity ;  as  Billuart.  Others  refer  it  to  the  state  of 
innocence ;  as  Viva.  The  difference  is  not  of  consequence  to  our  present 
purpose.  See  Billuart.  Praearnbula  ad  tract,  de  gratia:  and  Viva  de  Gratia 
Adamica  in  his  Trutina  thesium  Quesnelliarurum.  See  also  Ripalda's  Dispu- 
tation on  the  Baian  Propositions,  which  Dr.  Ward  Of  St.  Eumund'a  College 
has  published  in  a  separate  form. 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CBEATUBE.  51 

hold  that  the  grace  of  Adam  produced  only  human 
merits,  and  was  a  natural  sequel  of  creation,  and  due  to 
nature  on  its  own  account.*  This  state  of  innocence,  or 
original  justice,  was  that  in  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
Adam  was  created. 

The  fourth  condition  of  man  is  the  state  of  fallen, 
while  the  fifth  is  that  of  redeemed  nature,  to  which 
may  be  added  the  state  of  glorified  nature,  and  the  state 
of  lost  nature,  in  which  ultimately  the  other  states  must 
issue.  Our  present  purpose  does  not  require  us  to  enter 
upon  these.  We  will  only  stop  to  point  out  a  very 
beautiful  and  touching  analogy.  Just  as  tho  separate 
orders  of  nature  and  grace  were  by  the  sweet  love  of 
God  started  in  the  same  act,  so  the  promise  of  the 
Saviour  and  the  actual  operation  of  saving  grace  fol- 
lowed at  once  upon  the  fall,  and  fallen  nature  was 
6tniightway  placed  upon  the  road  of  reparation  and 
redemption.  Tims  is  it  always  in  the  love  of  God. 
There  is  a  pathetic  semblance  of  impatience  about  it, 
an  eagerness  to  anticipate,  a  quickness  to  interfere,  an 
unnecessary  profusion  in  remedying,  a  perpetual  ten- 
dency to  keep  outstripping  itself  and  outdoing  itself; 
and  in  all  these  ways  is  it  evermore  overrunning  all 
creation,  beautifying  and  glorifying  it  with  its  owa 
eternal  splendours. 

What  then  we  must  bear  in  mind  throughout  is  this, 
that  the  orders  of  nature  and  grace  are  in  reality  quite 
distinct,  that  God  must  be  regarded  as  the  author  of 
both,  and  that  we  must  continually  bear  in  mind  this 
distinction,  if  we  would  avoid  the  entanglement  of 
errors,  which  have  been  noted  in  the  Condemned  Pro- 
positions.    At  the  same  time  we  shall  speak  of  God 

•  The  zist  and  14th  Propositions  of  Buius. 


LIBRARY         TT.mrttt 


52  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

throughout  as  at  once  the  author  of  both  these  order?, 
and  of  creation  as  representing  both,  because  as  a  matter 
of  fact  they  both  started  in  creation,  in  the  case  both 
of  angels  and  of  men.*  Out  of  this  significant  fact, 
that  God  created  neither  angels  nor  men  in  a  state  of 
mere  nature,  our  *view  of  God  materially  proceeds.  It 
is  a  fact  which  reveals  volumes  about  Him.  It  stamps 
a  peculiar  character  upon  creation,  and  originates  obli- 
gations which  greatly  influence  the  relations  of  tho 
creature  to  his  Creator.  Creation  was  itself  a  gratuitous 
gift.  But,  granting  creation,  nothing  was  due  to  tho 
natures  either  of  angels  or  men  but  what  those  natures 
respectively  could  claim  on  grounds  intrinsic  to  them- 
selves.    It  was  to  have  been  expected  beforehand  that 

*  See  Propositions  xxxiv.  of  Quesnel  and  i.  of  Baius,  also  xxxv.  of  Quesnel 
and  xxi.  of  Bains.  It  will  be  observed  that  we  carefully  avoid  the  controversy 
about  the  condemnation  of  the  xxxivth  proposition  of  Baius,  on  the  distinc- 
tion of  the  double  love  of  God,  as  author  of  nature  and  author  of  beatitude. 
Suarez  and  Vasquez  quote  Cardinal  Toledo,  (who  was  sent  to  Louvain  on  tho 
subject  by  Gregory  XIII.  and  may  therefore  be  supposed  to  have  known  tha 
pope's  mind,)  as  saying  that  some  of  the  propositions  of  Baius  were  only  con- 
demned  because  of  the  bitter  language  used  of  the  opposite  opinion.  Billuart 
and  others  are  very  vehement  against  this.  On  the  xxxivth  proposition  in, 
particular  Vasquez  and  De  Lugo  take  one  side,  and  Suarez,  Viva,  liipalda, 
and  the  Thomists  generally  the  other.  See  Vasq.  i.  2.  p.  Disp.  195.  cap.  2. 
De  Lugo  de  Fide  disp.  9.  n.  11-13.  The  controversy  does  not  concern  us, 
because  we  are  regarding  the  two  orders  of  nature  and  grace  throughout  as 
starting  simultaneously  in  creation,  distinct  yet  contemporary,  and  are  also 
studiously  regarding  God  as  the  author  of  both.  We  have  therefore  nothing 
•Jo  do  with  the  question  whether  in  order  to  a  true  act  of  love  we  must  ex- 
plicitly regard  God  as  the  author  of  the  supernatural  order.  In  order  to 
avoid  multiplying  notes,  the  reader  is  requested  not  to  lose  sight  of  this  fact 
throughout  the  whole  treatise.  Van  Ranst,  in  commenting  (page  29)  on  the 
proposition  of  Baius,  quoies  the  following  passage  of  St.  Thomas  from  his 
commentary  on  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  Amor  est  qurcdam  vis 
unitiva,  et  omnis  amor  in  unione  quadam  consistit.  Unde  secundum  diversas 
uniones  diversaa  species  amicitiae  distinguantur.  Nos  autem  habemus  dupli- 
cem  coi  junctionem  cum  Deo.  Una  est  quantum  ad  bona  natuire,  alia  quan- 
tum ad  beatitudinem.  Secundum  primam  communicationem  ad  Dcum,  est 
amicitia  naturalis.  Secundum  vero  communicationem  secundam  est  amor 
Cliaritatis,    Ad  1  aid  Corinth,  xiii.  4. 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  53 

God  would  have  created  them  in  a  state  of  perfect 
nature.  It  is  a  surprise  that  it  was  not  so.  Ou  the 
very  threshold  of  theology  we  are  arrested  by  this 
mysterious  fact,  that  rational  creatures  ctmie  from  their 
Creator's  hands  in  a  supernatural  state,  and  that  in 
His  first  act  the  natural  never  stood  alone,  but  it  leaned, 
all  perfect  as  it  was,  upon  the  supernatural.  It  was 
as  if  God  did  not  like  to  let  nature  go,  lest  haply  He 
should  lose  what  He  so  dearly  loved.  This  one  fact 
seems  to  us  the  great  fact  of  the  whole  of  theology, 
colouring  it  all  down  to  its  lowest  definition,  and  mar- 
vellously  illuminating,  from  beneath,  the  character  and 
beauty  of  our  Creator.  It  is  a  hidden  sunshine  in  our 
minds,  better  than  this  outer  sunshine  that  is  round  us 
now.  O  surely  to  be  a  creature  is  a  joyous  tiling  ;  and 
even  our  very  nothingness  is  dear  to  us,  as  we  think  of 
God  ;  for  it  seems  to  be  almost  a  grandeur,  instead^f  an 
abasement,  to  have  been  thus  called  out  of  nothing  by 
such  an  One  as  He. 

"We  are  creatures.  What  is  it  to  be  a  creature? 
Before  the  sun  sets  in  the  red  west,  let  us  try  to  have 
an  answer  to  our  question.  We  find  ourselves  in  exis- 
tence to-day,  amid  this  beautiful  scene,  with  multitudes 
of  our  fellow-creatures  round  about  us.  We  have  been 
alive  and  on  the  earth  so  many  years,  so  many  months, 
so  many  weeks,  so  many  days,  so  many  hours.  At 
such  and  such  a  time  we  came  to  the  use  of  reason  ; 
but  at  such  an  age  and  in  such  a  way  that  we  clearly 
did  not  confer  our  reason  upon  ourselves.  But  here  we 
are  to-day,  not  only  with  a  reason,  but  with  a  character 
of  our  own,  and  fulfilling  a  destiny  in  some  appointed 
station  in  life.  We  know  nothing  of  what  has  gone 
before  us,  except  some  little  of  the  exterior  of  the  past, 
which  history  or  tradition  or  family  records  have  toll  us 


C±  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

of.  We  do  not  doubt  that  the  sun  and  the  moon,  the 
planets  and  the  stars,  the  blue  skies  and  the  four  winds, 
the  "wide  green  seas  and  the  fruitful  earth,  were  before 
our  time ;  indeed  before  the  time  of  man  at  all.  Science 
unriddles  mysterious  things  about  them ;  but  all  addi- 
tional light  seems  only  to  darken  and  to  deepen  our  real 
ignorance. 

So  is  it  with  the  creature  man.  He  finds  himself  in 
existence,  an  existence  which  he  did  not  give  to  himself. 
He  knows  next  to  nothing  of  what  has  gone  before; 
and  absolutely  nothing  of  what  is  to  come,  except  so 
far  as  Ids  Creator  is  pleased  to  reveal  it  to  him  super- 
naturally.  And  thus  it  comes  to  pass  that  he  knows 
better  what  will  happen  to  him  in  the  world  to  come, 
than  what  will  be  his  fortune  here.  Pie  knows  nothing 
of  what  is  to  happen  to  himself  on  earth.  Whether 
his  future  years  will  be  happy  or  sorrowful,  whether 
he  will  rise  or  fall,  whether  he  will  be  well  or  ailing, 
he  knows  not.  It  is  not  in  his  own  hands,  neither  is  it 
"before  his  eyes.  If  you  ask  him  the  particular  and 
special  end  which  he  is  to  fulfil  in  his  life,  what  the 
peculiar  gift  or  good  which  he  was  called  into  being 
to  confer  upon  his  fellow-men,  what  the  exact  place  and 
position  which  he  was  to  fill  in  the  great  social  whole, 
he  cannot  tell  you.  It  has  not  been  told  to  him.  The 
chances  are,  with  him  as,  with  most  men,  that  he  will 
die,  and  yet  not  know  it.  And  why?  Because  he  is  a 
creature. 

His  being  born  was  a  tremendous  act.  Yet  it  wa9 
not  his  own.  It  has  entangled  him  in  quantities  of  dif- 
ficult problems,  and  implicated  him  in  numberless 
important  responsibilities.  In  fact  he  has  in  him  an 
absolute  inevitable  necessity  either  of  endless  joy  or  of 
endless  misery;  though  he  is  free  to  choose  between 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE,  55 

the  two.  Annihilation  he  is  not  free  to  choose,  Reach 
out  into  the  on-coming  eternity  as  far  as  the  fancy  can 
there  still  will  this  man  be,  simply  because  he  has  been 
already  born.  The  consequences  of  his  birth  are  not 
only  unspeakable  in  their  magnitude,  they  are  simply 
eternal.  Yet  lie  was  not  consulted  about  his  own  birth, 
lie  was  not  offered  the  choice  of  being  or  not-being. 
Mercy  required  that  he  should  not  be  offered  it;  justice 
did  not  require  that  he  should.  We  are  not  concerned 
now  to  defend  God.  We  are  only  stating  facts,  and 
taking  the  facts  as  we  find  them.  It  is  a  fact  that  he 
was  not  consulted  about  his  own  birth;  and  it  is  truer 
and  higher  than  all  facts,  that  God  can  do  nothing  but 
•what  is  blessedly,  beautifully  right.  A  creature  has  no 
right  to  be  consulted  about  his  own  creation:  and  for 
this  reason  simply, — that  he  is  a  creature. 

He  has  no  notion  why  it  was  that  his  particular  soul 
rather  than  any  other  soul  was  called  into  being,  and  put 
into  his  place.  Not  only  can  he  conceive  a  soul  far  more 
noble  and  devout  than  his,  but  he  sees,  as  he  thinks, 
peculiar  deficiencies  in  himself,  in  some  measure  dis- 
qualifying him  for  the  actual  position  in  which  God  has 
placed  him.  And  how  can  he  account  for  this?  Yet 
God  must  be  right.  And  his  own  liberty  too  must  be 
very  broad,  and  strong,  and  responsible.  He  clearly 
has  a  work  to  do,  and  came  here  simply  to  do  it;  and 
it  is  equally  clear  that  if  God  will  not  work  with  him 
against  his  own  will,  he  also  cannot  work  without  God. 
Every  step  which  a  creature  takes,  when  he  has  once 
been  created,  increases  his  dependence  upon  his  Creator,, 
He  belongs  utterly  to  God  by  creation:  if  words  would 
enable  us  to  say  it,  he  belongs  still  more  utterly  to 
God  by  preservation.  In  a  word,  the  creature  becomes 
more  completely,  more  thoroughly,  more  significantly 


56  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATUPwE. 

a  creature,  every  moment  that  his  created  life  is  con- 
tinued to  him.  This  is  in  fact  his  true  blessedness,  to 
be  ever  more  and  more  enclosed  in  the  hand  of  God 
■who  made  him.  The  Creator's  hand  is  the  creature's 
home. 

As  he  was  not  consulted  about  his  coming  into  the 
world,  so  neither  is  he  consulted  about  his  going  out  of 
it.  He  does  not  believe  he  is  going  to  remain  always 
on  earth.  He  is  satisfied  that  the  contrary  will  be  the 
case.  He  knows  that  he  will  come  to  an  end  of  this 
life,  without  ceasing  to  live.  He  is  aware  that  he  will 
end  this  life  with  more  or  less  of  pain,  pain  without  a 
parallel,  pain  like  no  other  pain,  and  most  likely  very 
terrible  pain.  For  though  the  act  of  dying  is  itself 
probably  painless,  yet  it  has  for  the  most  part  to  be 
reached  through  pain.  Death  will  throw  open  to  him 
the  gates  of  another  world,  and  will  be  the  beginning 
to  him  of  far  more  solemn  and  more  wonderful  actions 
than  it  has  been  his  lot  to  perform  on  earth.  Every- 
thing to  him  depends  on  his  dying  at  the  right  time 
and  in  the  right  way.  Yet  he  is  not  consulted  about 
it.  He  is  entitled  to  no  kind  of  warning.  No  sort  of 
choice  is  left  him  either  of  time  or  place  or  manner.  It 
is  true  he  may  take  his  own  life.  But  he  had  better 
not.  His  liberty  is  indeed  very  great,  since  this  is  left 
free  to  him.  Yet  suicide  would  not  help  him  out  of  his 
difficulties.  It  only  makes  certain  to  him  the  worst  that 
could  be.  He  is  only  cutting  off  his  own  chances;  and 
by  taking  his  life  into  his  own  hands  he  is  rashly  throw- 
ing himself  out  of  his  own  hands  in  the  most  fatal  way 
conceivable.  One  whose  business  it  is  to  come  when  he 
is  called,  and  to  depart  when  he  is  bidden,  and  to  have 
no  reason  given  him  either  for  his  call  or  his  dismissal, 
except  such  as  he  can  gather  from  the  character  of  hit 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATUEE.  57 

master — such  is  man  upon  earth ;  and  he  is  so,  because 
he  is  a  creature. 

Is  it  childish  to  say  all  this  ?  We  fear  we  must  say 
something  more  childish  still.  "We  must  not  omit  to 
notice  of  this  creature,  this  man,  that  he  did  not  make 
the  world  he  finds  around  him.  He  could  not  have  done 
60,  for  lack  of  wisdom  and  of  power.  But  it  is  not 
this  we  would  dwell  on.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  did  not 
do  so;  and  therefore,  as  he  did  not  make  the  world,  it 
is  not  his  world,  but  somebody  else's.  He  can  have 
no  rights  in  it,  but  such  as  the  proprietor  may  volun- 
tarily make  over  to  him  in  the  way  of  gift.  He  can 
have  no  sovereignty  over  it,  or  any  part  of  it,  unless  by 
a  royal  grace  the  true  sovereign  has  invested  him  with 
delegated  powers.  In  himself  therefore  he  is  without 
dominion.  Dominion  does  not  belong  to  him  as  a  crea- 
ture. Dominion  is  a  different  idea,  and  comes  from 
another  quarter. 

Furthermore — and  we  do  not  care  whether  it  be  from 
faith  or  reason,  or  from  what  proportion  of  both — this 
creature  cannot  resist  the  certainties  that  there  is  an 
unseen  world  in  which  he  is  very  much  concerned.  He 
is  quite  sure,  nervously  sure,  that  there  are  persons  and 
things  close  to  him,  though  unseen,  which  are  of  far 
greater  import  than  what  he  sees.  He  believes  in  pre- 
sences which  are  more  intimate  to  him  than  any  presence 
of  external  thiug9,  nay,  in  one  Presence  which  is  more 
intimate  to  him  than  he  is  to  his  own  self.  Death  is  a 
flight  away  from  earth,  not  a  lying  down  a  few  feet 
beneath  its  sods ;  it  is  a  vigorous  outburst  of  a  new  life, 
net  a  resting  on  a  clay  pillow  from  the  wearyful  toil  of 
this  life.  All  things  in  him  and  around  him  are  felt  to 
be  beginnings,  and  the  curtains  of  the  unseen  world,  as 
if  lilted  by  the  wind,  wave  ever^and  anon  into  his  face, 


58  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  EE  A  CREATURE. 

and  cling  to  it  like  a  mask,' and  he  sees  through,  or 
thinks  he  sees.  This  is  the  last  tiling  we  have  to  note 
ot  this  man,  as  he  sits  upon  the  hill-top,  in  the  sunshine, 
part  and  parcel  of  the  creatures  round  about  him.  lie 
finds  himself  in  existence  by  the  act  of  another.  He 
knows  nothing  of  what  has  gone  before  him,  nothing 
of  what  is  to  happen  to  himself,  and  next  to  nothing  of 
what  is  to  come,  and  that  little  only  by  revelation.  He 
was  not  consulted  about  his  own  birth,  nor  will  he  be 
about  his  death.  He  has  to  die  out,  and  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  when  or  the  how.  He  did  not  make  the 
world  he  finds  around  him,  and  therefore  it  is  not  his. 
Neither  can  he  resist  the  conviction  that  this  world  is 
for  him  only  the  porch  of  another  and  more  magnificent 
temple  of  the  Creator's  majesty,  wherein  he  will  enter 
still  further  into  the  Creator's  power,  and  learn  that  to 
be  in  the  Creator's  power  is  the  creature's  happiness. 

It  is  not  our  present  business  to  explain  or  comment 
on  all  this,  we  are  only  concerned  to  state  facts.  Thi3 
is  the  position  of  each  one  of  us  as  men  and  creatures, 
the  position  wherein  we  find  ourselves  at  any  given 
moment  in  which  we  may  choose  to  advert  to  ourselves 
and  our  circumstances  :  and  the  fact  that  such  is  our 
position  is  no  small  help  towards  an  answer  to  our  ques- 
tion, What  is  it  to  be  a  creature?  But  let  us  now 
advance  a  step  further.  Let  us  pass  from  the  position 
of  this  creature  to  what  we  know  to  be  his  real  history* 
Let  us  look  at  him  on  the  hill-top,  not  merely  in  the 
sunshine  of  nature,  but  in  the  light  of  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ.  Now  we  shall  gain  fresh  knowledge 
about  him  and  understand  hirn  better.  AVe  shall 
know  his  meaning  and  his  destiny,  and  can  then  in- 
fer from  them  his  condition,  his  duties,  and  his  respon- 
sibilities. 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  59 

He  may  occupy  a  very  private  position  in  the  world. 
He  may  not  be  known  beyond  the  sanctuary  of  his 
own  family,  or  the  limits  of  a  moderate  circle  of  ac- 
quaintances. The  great  tilings  of  the  world  have  no 
reference  to  him,  and  public  men  do  not  consult  him. 
He  has  his  little  world  of  hopes  and  fears,  of  joys  ani 
e:\  messes,  and  strangers  intermeddle  not  with  either. 
His  light  and  his  darkness  are  both  his  own.  But  he 
is  a  person  of  no  consequence.  The  earth,  the  nation, 
the  shire,  the  village,  go  on  without  his  interference. 
He  is  a  man  like  the  crowd  of  men,  and  is  not  notice- 
able in  any  other  way.  Yet  the  beginning  of  his  his- 
tory is  a  long  way  off.  Far  in  the  eternal  mind  of  God, 
farther  than  you  can  look,  he  is  there.  He  has  had 
his  place  there  from  eternity ;  and  before  ever  the  world 
was,  he  lay  there  with  the  light  of  God's  goodness 
around  him,  and  the  clearness  of  God's  intentions  upon 
him,  and  wai  the  object  of  a  distinct,  transcending, 
and  unfathomable  love.  There  was  more  of  power,  of 
wisdom,  and  of  goodness  in  the  love  which  God  bore 
through  eternity  to  that  insignificant  man,  than  we  can 
conceive  of,  though  we  raise  our  imaginations  to  the 
greatest  height  of  which  they  are  capable.  May  we  s-iy 
it?  He  was  part  of  God's  glory,  of  God's  bliss, 
through  all  the  unrevoking  ages  of  a  past  eternity. 
The  hanging  up  in  heaven  of  those  multitudes  of  bril- 
liant worlds,  the  composition,  the  adornment,  and  the 
equipoise  of  their  ponderous  masses,  all  the  marvels  of 
inanimate  material  creation,  all  the  inexplicable  chem- 
istry which  is  the  world's  life,  were  as  nothing  com- 
pared to  the  intense  brooding  of  heavenly  love,  the 
compassionate  fulness  of  divine  predestination,  over  that 
single  soul.  Tiiink  of  that,  as  he  sits  among  the  trees 
and  shrubs,  with  the  insects  and  the  birds  about  him ! 


60  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

So  long  as  there  has  been  a  God,  so  long  has  that  soul 
been  the  object  of  His  knowledge  and  His  love.  Ever 
since  the  uncreated  abyss  of  almighty  love  has  been 
spread  forth,  there  lay  that  soul  gleaming  on  its  bright 
waters.  O  no  wonder  God  is  so  patient  with  sinners, 
no  wonder  Jesus  died  for  souls  ! 

But  this  is  not  the  whole  of  his  real  history.  There 
is  more  about  him  still.  We  do  not  know  what  the 
secrets  of  his  conscience  may  be,  nor  whether  he  is 
in  a  state  of  grace,  nor  what  might  be  God's  judgment 
of  him  if  He  called  him  away  at  this  moment.  But 
whatever  comes  of  these  questions,  it  is  a  simple  matter 
of  fact  that  that  man  was  part  of  the  reason  of  the  In- 
carnation of  the  Second  Person  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity. 
He  belongs  to  Jesus  and  was  created  for  Jesus.  He 
is  part  of  his  Saviour's  property,  and  meant  to  adorn 
His  kingdom.  His  body  and  his  soul  are  both  of  them 
fashioned,  in  their  degree,  after  the  model  of  the  Body 
and  the  Soul  of  the  Word  made  flesh.  His  predestina- 
tion flowed  out  froni,  and  is  inclosed  in,  the  predesti- 
nation of  Jesus.  He  is  the  brother  of  His  God,  and  has 
a  divine  right  to  call  her  mother  who  calls  the  Creator 
Son.  He  was  foreseen  in  the  decree  of  the  Incarnation. 
The  olory  of  his  soul  and  the  possibilities  of  his  human 
heart  entered  as  items  into  that  huge  sum  of  attractions 
which  drew  the  Eternal  Word  to  seek  His  delight* 
amona  the  sons  of  men,  by  assuming  their  created 
nature  to  His  uncreated  Person.  His  sins  were  partly 
the  cause  why  the  Precious  Blood  was  shed  ;  and  Jesus 
suffered,  died,  rose  again,  and  ascended  for  him,  as  com- 
pletely as  if  he  were  the  only  one  of  his  race  that  ever 
fell.  There  must  be  something  very  attractive  in  him 
for  our  Lord  to  have  loved  him  thus  steadily  and  thu3 
ardently.     You  see  that  He  counted  that  creature's  sins 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  Gl 

over  loir*  and  long  ago.  He  saw  them,  as  we  blinl 
men  can  never  see  them,  singly  and  separately  in  all 
their  unutterable  horror  and  surpassing  malice.  Then 
lie  viewed  them  as  a  whole,  perhaps  thousands  in  num- 
ber, and  aggravated  by  almost  every  variety  of  circum- 
stance of  which  human  actions  are  capable.  And  never- 
theless there  was  something  in  that  man  which  so  drew 
upon  the  love  of  the  unspeakably  holy  God,  that  He 
determined  to  die  for  him,  to  satisfy,  and  over-satisfy 
for  all  his  sins,  to  merit  for  him  a  perfect  sea  of  untold 
graces,  and  to  beguile  him  by  the  most  self-sacrificing 
generosity  to  the  happiness  of  His  divine  embraces.  All 
this  was  because  that  man  was  His  creature.  So  you 
6ee  what  a  history  his  has  been,  what  a  stir  he  has 
made  in  the  world  by  having  to  do  with  the  Incarna- 
tion, how  he  has  been  mixed  up  with  eternal  plans,  and 
has  helped  to  bring  a  seeming  change  over  the  ever- 
blessed  and  unchanging  God  !  Alas  !  if  it  is  hard  to 
eee  good  points  in  others,  how  much  harder  must  it  be 
fur  God  to  see  good  points  in  us,  and  yet  how  He  loves 
us  all  1 

But  to  return  to  our  man,  whoever  he  may  be.  Ifc 
is  of  course  true  that  God  had  a  general  purpose  in  the 
whole  of  creation,  or  to  speak  more  truly,  many  general 
purposes.  But  it  is  also  true  that  He  had  a  special 
purpose  in  this  man  whom  we  are  picturing  to  our- 
selves. The  man  came  into  the  world  to  do  something 
particular  for  God,  to  carry  out  some  definite  plan,  to 
fulfil  some  one  appointed  end,  which  belongs  to  him  in 
such  a  way  that  it  does  not  belong  to  other  men.  There 
is  a  peculiar  service,  a  distinct  glory,  which  God  desires 
to  have  from  that  man,  different  from  the  service  and 
the  glory  of  any  other  man  in  the  world  ;  and  the  man's 
dignity  and  happiness  will  result  from  his  giving  Gcd 


02  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

that  service  and  glory  and  no  other.  As  he  did  nofc 
make  himself,  so  neither  can  he  give  himself  his  own 
vocation.  He  does  not  know  what  special  function  it 
has  fallen  to  him  to  perform  in  the  immense  scheme 
and  gigantic  world  of  his  Creator;  but  it  is  not  the  less 
true  that  he  has  such  a  special  function.  Life  as  ifc 
unfolds  will  bring  it  to  him.  Years  will  lay  his  duly 
and  his  destiny  at  his  door  in  parts  successively.  Per- 
haps on  this  side  of  the  grave  he  may  never  see  his 
work  as  an  intelligible  whole.  Ifc  may  be  part  of  his 
work  to  be  tried  by  this  very  obscurity.  But  with  what 
a  dignity  ifc  invests  the  man,  to  know  of  him  that,  as 
God  chose  his  particular  soul  at  the  moment  of  its  crea- 
tion rather  than  countless  other  possible  and  nobler 
souls,  so  does  He  vouchsafe  to  be  dependent  on  this 
single  man  for  a  glory  and  a  love,  which,  if  this  man 
refuses  ifc  to  Him,  He  will  not  get  from  any  other  man 
nor  from  all  men  put  together  !  God  has  an  interest  at; 
stake,  which  depends  exclusively  on  that  single  man : 
and  it  is  in  the  man's  power  to  frustrate  this  end,  and 
millions  do  so.  "When  we  consider  who  and  how  infi- 
nitely blessed,  God  is,  is  nofc  this  special  destiny  of  each 
man  a  touching  mystery?  How  close  ifc  seems  to  bring 
the  Creator  and  the  creature !  And  where  is  the  dignity 
of  the  creature  save  in  the  love  of  the  Creator? 

Furthermore,  this  man,  ifc  would  appear,  might  have 
been  born  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night  these  last  five 
thousand  years  and  more.  He  might  have  been  before 
Christ  or  after  Him,  and  of  any  nation,  rank  or  religion. 
His  soul  could  have  been  called  out  of  nothing  afc  any 
moment  as  easily  as  when  it  pleased  God  in  fact  to  call  ifc. 
But  it  pleased  God  to  call  ifc  when  He  did,  because  that 
time,  and  no  other  time,  suited  the  special  end  for  whicli 
that  man  was  to  live.    He  was  born,  just  when  he  was, 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  G3 

for  the  sake  of  that  particular  purpose.  He  would  have 
been  too  60on,  had  he  been  born  earlier;  too  late,  if  he 
had  not  been  born  as  early.  And  in  like  manner  will 
he  die.  An  hour,  a  place,  a  manner  of  death  are  all 
fixed  for  Mm ;  yet  so  as  not  in  the  least  to  interfere 
with  1 1I3  freedom.  Everything  is  arranged  with  such 
a  superabundance  of  mercy  and  indulgence,  that  he  will 
not  only  die  just  when  it  fits  in  with  the  special  work 
he  has  to  do  for  God,  and  the  special  glory  God  is  to 
have  from  him,  but  he  will  most  probably  die  at  the 
one  hour  when  it  is  safest  and  best  for  himself  to  die.  The 
time,  the  place,  the  manner,  and  the  pain  of  his  death 
will  in  ordinary  cases  be  better  for  that  man  than  any 
other  time,  place,  manner,  or  pain  would  be.  The  most 
cruel-seeming  death,  if  we  could  only  see  it,  is  a  mercy 
which  saves  us  from  something  worse,  a  boon  of  such 
magnitude  as  befits  the  liberality  even  of  the  Most  High 
God. 

Once  again:  a  particular  eternity  is  laid  out  for  that 
man,  to  be  won  by  his  own  free  correspondence  to  the 
exuberant  grace  of  his  Creator.  There  is  a  brightness 
which  may  be  his  for  ever,  a  distinct  splendour  and 
characteristic  loveliness  by  which  he  may  be  one  day 
known,  admired,  and  loved  amid  the  populous  throngs 
of  the  great  heaven.  His  own  place  is  ready  for  him  in 
the  unutterable  rest  of  everlasting  joys.  That  man, 
who  is  gazing  on  the  landscape  at  his  feet,  has  an  in- 
heritance before  him,  to  which  the  united  wealth  of 
kings  is  poverty  and  vileness.  A  light,  a  beauty,  a 
power,  a  wisdom,  are  laid  up  for  him,  to  which  all  the 
wonders  of  the  material  creation  are  worse  than  tame, 
lower  than  uninteresting.  He  is  earning  them  at  this 
moment,  by  the  acts  of  lore  which  it  seems  as  if  the 
simple  cheer  of  the  sunshino  were  drawing  out  ot  his 


64  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  £E  A  CREATURE. 

soul.     They  have  a  strange  disproportionate  proportion 
to  his  modest  and  obscure  works  on  earth.     God,  and 
angels,  and  saints,  are  all  busy  with  solicitous  loving 
wisdom,  to  see  that  he  does  not  miss  his  inheritance. 
His  eternity  is  dependent  on  his  answering  the  special 
end  of  his  creation.     Doubtless  at  this  moment  he  has 
no  clear  idea  of  what  his  special  work  is ;  doubtless  it 
is   one    of   such   unimportance,    according   to   human 
measures,  that  it  will  never  lay  any  weight  on  the  pros- 
perity, or  the  laws,  or  the  police  of  his  country.     His 
light  is  probably  too  dim  to  be  visible  even  to  his  neigh« 
bourhood.     Yet  with  it  and  because  of  it,  he  is  one  day 
to  shine  like  ten  thousand  suns,  far  withdrawn  within 
the  peace  of  his  satisfied  and  delighted  God  ! 

Such  is  the  man's  real  history,  traced  onward  irom 
the  hour  when  it  pleased  God  to  create  his  particular 
soul.     And  how  many  things  there  are  in  it  to  wonder 
at !     How  great  is  the  dignity,  how  incalculable  the 
destinies  of  man  !     All  these  things  belong  to  him,  not 
certainly  in  right  of  his  being  a  creature,  but  at  least 
because  he  is  a  creature.     Creation  explains  all  other 
mysteries,  or  is  a  step  towards  explaining  them.     No 
wonder  God  should  become  man,  in  order  to  be  with 
him,  or  should  die  for  him,  in  order  to  save  him.     No 
wonder  He  should  abide  with  him  in  mute  reality  in 
the  tabernacle,  to  feed  his  soul,  and  to  sustain  him  and 
keep  alive  His  creature's  love  by  His  own  silent  com- 
pany.    No  wonder  the  angels  should  cling  about  a  man 
so  fondly,  nor  that  the  one  master-passion  of  the  saints 
should  be  the  love  of  souls.     The  wonder  is  that  God 
should  have  created  man ;  not  that  having  created  him, 
He  should  love  him  so  tenderly.     Both  are  wonders ; 
tout  the  first  is  the  greater  wonder.     Redemption  does 
not  follow  from  creation  as  a  matter  of-  course :    but 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  C5 

creation  has  so  surprised  us,  that  we  are  less  surprised 
at  new  disclosures  of  the  Creator's  love.  In  a  series  of 
surprises  the  first  surprise  is,  in  some  sense,  the  greatest, 
because  it  is  the  first,  while,  in  another  sense,  further 
surprises  are  greater,  precisely  because  they  are  further 
ones.  In  truth,  man's  dignity,  wonderful  as  it  is,  is 
less  a  wonder  than  the  creating  love  of  God.  How  lie 
holds  His  creature  in  His  hand  for  ever!  How  all 
things,  dark  as  well  as  bright,  are  simply  purposes  of 
unutterable  goodness  and  compassion  1  How  difficulties 
and  problems  are  only  places  where  love  is  so  much 
deeper  than  common,  that  the  eye  cannot  pierce  it,  nor 
the  lines  of  our  wisdom  fathom  it !  0  of  a  truth  God  is 
indescribably  good,  and  we  feel  that  He  is  so  whenever 
we  remember  that  He  made  us !  What  a  joy  it  is  to 
be  altogether  His,  to  belong  to  Him,  to  feel  our  com- 
plete dependence  upon  Him,  to  lean  our  whole  weight 
upon  Ilim,  not  only  for  the  delight  of  feeling  that  He  is 
so  strong,  but  also  that  we  are  so  weak,  and  therefore  so 
need  Ilim  always  and  everywhere  !  What  liberty  is 
like  the  sense  of  being  encompassed  with  nis  sove- 
reignty !  What  a  gladness  that  He  is  immense,  so  that 
we  cannot  escape  from  Him,  omniscient  so  that  we  are 
laid  open  and  without  a  secret  before  Him,  eternal  so 
that  we  are  in  His  sight  but  nothingness,  nothingness 
that  lives  because  He  loves  it ! 

Something  more  is  still  required  in  order  to  complete 
our  picture  of  the  creature.  We  have  represented  his 
position,  and  have  traced  Ids  real  life  ;  but  we  have  gob 
to  consider  the  condition  in  which  he  is  as  a  creature. 
We  shall  have  to  plead  guilty  to  a  little  repetition. 
The  nature  of  our  subject  renders  it  unavoidable,  and 
ve  must  crave  the  reader's  indulgence  for  it. 

The  first  feature  to  be  noticed  in  the  condition  of  this 

5     t 


CS  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

creature  man  is  his  want  of  power.  Not  only  is  his 
health  uncertain,  but  at  his  best  estate  his  strength  is 
very  small.  Brute  matter  resists  him  passively.  He 
cannot  lift  great  weights  of  it,  nor  dig  deep  into  it 
Even  with  the  help  of  the  most  ingenious  machinery 
and  the  united  labour  of  multitudes  he  can  do  little  but 
scratch  the  surface  of  the  planet,  without  being  able  to 
alter  the  expression  of  one  of  its  lineaments.  Fire  and 
water  are  both  his  masters.  His  prosperity  is  at  the 
mercy  of  the  weather.  Matter  is  baffling  and  ruining 
him  somewhere  on  the  earth  at  all  hours  of  day  and 
night.  He  has  to  struggle  continually  to  maintain  his 
position,  and  then  maintains  it  with  exceeding  difficulty. 
Considering  how  many  thousands  of  years  the  race  oi 
man  has  inhabited  the  world,  it  is  surprising  how  little 
controul  he  has  acquired  over  diseases,  how  little  he 
knows  of  them,  how  much  less  he  can  do  to  alleviate 
them.  Even  in  his  arts  and  sciences  there  are  strangely 
few  things  which  he  can  reduce  to  certainty.  His 
knowledge  is  extremely  limited,  and  is  liable  to  the 
most  humiliating  errors  and  the  most  unexpected  mis- 
takes. He  is  in  comparative  ignorance  of  himself,  of 
his  thinking  principle,  of  the  processes  of  his  immaterial 
soul,  of  the  laws  of  its  various  faculties,  or  of  the  com- 
binations of  mind  and  matter.  Metaphysics,  which 
should  rank  next  to  religion  in  the  scale  of  sciences,  are 
a  proverb  for  confusion  and  obscurity.  Infinite  longings 
perpetually  checked  by  a  sense  of  feebleness,  and  cir- 
cumscribed within  the  limits  of  a  narrow  prison, — this 
is  a  description  of  the  highest  and  most  aspiring  moods 
of  man. 

Such  is  the  condition  of  otir  man  if  we  look  at  him 
in  his  solitary  dignity  as  lord  of  the  creation.  Bufc 
even  this  is  too  favourable  a  representation  oil  him. 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  C7 

His  solitary  dignity  is  a  mere  imagination,     Oa  the 

contrary  he  is  completely  mixed  up  with  the  crowd  of 
inferior  creatures,  and  in  numberless  ways  dependent 
upon  them.  If  left  to  himself  the  ponderous  earth  is 
simply  useless  to  him.  Its  maternal  bosom  contains 
supplies  of  minerals  an  1  gases,  which  are  meant  for  the 
daily  sustaining  of  human  life.  Without  them  this 
man  would  die  in  torture  in  a  few  days;  and  yet  by 
no  chemistry  can  he  get  hold  of  them  himself  and  make 
them  into  food.  He  is  simply  dependent  upon  plants. 
They  alone  can  make  the  earth  nutritious  to  him, 
whether  directly  as  food  themselves,  or  indirectly  by 
their  support  of  animal  life.  And  they  do  this  by  a 
multitu  le  of  hidden  processes,  many  of  which,  perhaps 
the  majority,  are  beyond  the  explanation  of  human 
chemistry.  Thus  he  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  vegetable 
world.  The  grass  that  tops  his  grave,  which  fed  kirn  in 
Lis  life,  now  feeds  on  him  in  turn. 

In  like  manner  is  he  dependent  upon  the  inferior 
animals.  Some  give  him  strength  to  work  with,  some 
warm  materials  to  clothe  himself  with,  some  their  flesh 
to  eat  or  their  milk  to  drink.  A  vast  proportion  of 
mankind  have  to  spend  their  time,  their  skill,  their 
wealth,  in  waiting  upon  horses  and  cows  and  camels, 
as  if  they  were  their  servants,  building  houses  for 
them,  supplying  them  with  food,  making  their  beds, 
washing  and  tending  them  as  if  they  were  children, 
and  studying  their  comforts.  More  than  half  the  men 
in  the  world  are  perhaps  engrossed  in  this  occupation 
at  the  present  moment.  Human  families  would  break 
up,  if  the  domestic  animals  ceased  to  be  members  of 
them.  Then,  as  to  the  insect  world,  it  gives  us  a  sort  of 
nervous  trepidation  to  contemplate  it.  The  numbers  of 
insects,  and  their  powers,  are  so  terrific,  so  absolutely 


6&  VTIIAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

irresistible,  that  they  could  sweep  every  living  thing 
from  the  earth  and  devour  us  all  within  a  week,  as  if 
they  were  the  fiery  breath  of  a  destroying  angel.  We 
can  hardly  tell  what  holds  the  lightning-like  speed  of 
their  prolific  generations  in  check.  Birds  of  prey, 
intestine  war,  man's  active  hostility, — these,  calculated 
at  their  highest,  seem  inadequate  to  keep  down  the 
insect  population,  whose  numbers  and  powers  of  annoy- 
ance yearly  threaten  to  thrust  us  ofT  our  own  planet. 
It  is  God  Himself  who  puts  an  invisible  bridle  upon 
these  countless  and  irresistible  legions,  which  otherwise 
would  lick  us  up  like  thirsty  fire. 

What  should  we  do  without  the  sea?  Earth  and 
air  would  be  useless,  would  be  uninhabitable  without 
it.  There  is  not  a  year  but  the  great  deep  is  giving 
up  to  the  investigations  of  our  science  unthought  of 
secrets  of  its  utility,  and  of  our  dependence  upon  it. 
Men  are  only  beginning  to  learn  the  kind  and  gentlo 
and  philanthropic  nature  of  that  monster  thai  seems  so 
lawless  and  so  wild.  Our  dependence  on  the  air  is  no 
less  complete.  It  makes  our  blood,  and  is  the  warmth 
of  our  human  lives.  Nay,  would  it  be  less  bright  or 
beautiful,  if  it  allowed  to  escape  from  it,  let  us  say,  one 
gas,  the  carbonic  acid,  which  forms  but  an  infinitesi- 
mally  small  proportion  of  it,  the  gas  on  which  all 
vegetation  lives  ?  It  exists  in  the  air  in  quantities  so 
trifling  as  to  be  with  difficulty  discernible,  yet  if  it 
were  breathed  away,  or  if  the  sea  drank  it  all  in,  or 
would  not  give  back  again  what  it  drinks,  in  a  few 
short  hours  the  flowers  would  be  lying  withered  and 
discoloured  on  the  ground,  the  mighty  forests  would 
curl  up  their  myriad  leaves,  show  their  white  sides, 
and  then  let  them  wither  and  fall.  There  would  not 
be  a  blade  of  grass  upon  the  earth.     The  animals 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  69 

would  moan  and  faint,  and  famished  men  would  rise 
upon  each  other,  like  the  maddened  victims  of  a 
shipwreck,  in  the  fury  of  their  ungovernable  hunger. 
Within  one  short  week  the  planet  would  roll  on  bright 
in  its  glorious  sunshine,  and  its  mineral-coloured  plains 
speckled  with  the  shadows  of  its  beautiful  clouds,  but 
all  in  the  grim  silence  of  universal  death.  On  what 
trembling  balances  of  powers,  on  what  delicate  and 
almost  imperceptible  chemistries,  does  man's  tenure  of 
earth  seem  to  rest !  Yes  !  but  beneath  those  gauzelike 
veils  is  the  strong  arm  of  the  compassionate  Eternal ! 

It  would  require  a  whole  volume  to  trace  the  various 
ways  in  which  man  is  dependent  upon  the  inferior  crea- 
tures. All  the  adaptations,  of  which  different  sciences 
speak,  turn  out  upon  examination  to  be  so  many  depen. 
dencies  of  man  on  things  which  are  beneath  him.  la 
material  respects  man  is  often  inferior  to  his  inferiors. 
But  there  is  one  feature  in  his  lependency,  which  dees 
not  concern  his  fellow-creatures,  and  on  which  it  is  of 
consequence  to  dwell.  There  is  a  peculiar  kind  of 
incompleteness  about  all  he  does,  which  disables  him 
from  concluding  anything  of  himself,  or  unassisted. 
It  is  as  if  his  arm  was  never  quite  long  enough  to  reach 
his  object,  and  God  came  in  between  him  and  his  end 
to  enable  him  to  realize  it.  Man  is  ever  falling,  God 
ever  saving:  the  creature  always  on  the  point  of  being 
defeated,  the  Creator  always  coming  to  the  rescue 
opportunely.  Thus  man  plants  the  tree  and  waters  it, 
but  he  cannot  make  it  grow.  He  prepares  his  ground 
and  enriches  it,  he  sows  his  seeds  and  weeds  it;  but  he 
cannot  govern  the  weather,  or  the  insects,  on  which  his 
harvest  depends.  Between  his  labour  and  his  labour's 
reward  God  has  to  intervene.  When  he  lays  his  plans, 
he  docs  nothing  more  than  prepare  favourable  circuni- 


70  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATINE. 

stances   for   the   end   which    he   desires.     In   war,   in 

government,  in  education,  in  commerce,  when  he  has 

done  all,  he  lias  insured    nothing.     An  element  has  to 

come  in  and  to  be  waited  for,   without  which   he  can 

have   no  results,  and  over  which  he  has  no  controul. 

Sometimes    men   call  it  fate,     or    fortune,   sometimes 

chance  or  accident.     It  is    the  final  thing,  it  is  what 

completes  the  circle,  or  fires  the  train,  or    makes  the 

parts  into  a  whole.     It  is  the  interference  of   God,  the 

action   of  His  will.      In   every  department  of    human 

life  we  discover  this  peculiarity,  that  of    himself,  that  is 

with  means  left  at  his  own  disposal,  man   can  approach 

his  end,  but  not  attain  it:  he  can  get  near  it,  but  he 

cannot  reach  it.     He  is  always  too  short  by  a    little; 

and  the  supplement  of  that  littleness  is  as    invariably 

the  gratuitous   Providence  of   God.       Nothing    throws 

more  light  than  this  on  the  question,  What  is  it  to  be  a 

creature  ? 

All  this  is  very  common-place.  Everybody  knows 
it,  has  always  known  it,  and  never  doubted  it.  True: 
yet  see,  if  when  all  these  things  are  strung  together 
and  presented  to  your  mind,  there  does  not  rise  up  an 
almost  unconscious  feeling  of  exaggeration,  nay,  an 
almost  outspoken  charge  of  it,  against  the  statement  of 
the  case.  This  will  be  a  test  to  you,  that  you  have 
not  realized  the  case,  that  you  have  not  taken  it  in, 
and  consequently  that  you  have  something  still  to  learn 
from  facts  which  seem  so  undignifiedly  familiar.  For 
both  the  value  of  the  lesson  and  its  significance  depend 
upon  its  strength.  We  cannot  exaggerate  the  abject- 
ness  of  the  creature  in  itself,  looked  at  as  if  it  were 
apart  from  God,  which  happily  it  can  never  be,  though 
it  will  be  something  like  it  when  it  is  reprobate ;  and 
then,  what  more  unspeakably  abject  than  a  lost  soul? 


TTfTAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  OBEATUBE;  71 

What  we  are  always  to  feel,  and  never  to  forgot,  is  that 
we  are  finite,  dependent,  imperfect,  that  it  is  our  nature 
to  look  up  to  some  one  higher,  to  lean  on  some  one 
stronger,  and  that  it  is  as  unnatural  for  man  to  try  to 
go  alone  and  trust  himself,  as  for  a  fish  to  live  on  the 
land,  or  a  bird  of  the  air  in  the  flames  of  the  firei 
Dignity  we  have,  and  super-abundantly,  and  we  ought 
never  to  forget  it.  But  then  we  must  remember  also 
that  the  creature  man  has  no  dignity  except  in  the 
love  of  Him  who  made  him. 

But  our  real  history  adds  a  great  deal  to  our  condi- 
tion, which  is  full  of  important  consequences.  Man 
is  not  as  he  came  forth  at  first  from  the  hand  of  his 
Creator.  He  has  fallen ;  and  his  fall  is  not  merely  an 
external  disability,  consequent  on  an  historical  fact  so 
many  thousand  years  old.  He  bears  the  marks  of  it  in 
himself.  He  feels  its  effects  in  every  moral  act,  in 
every  intellectual  process.  He  is  the  prey  of  an  intestine 
warfare.  Two  conflicting  laws  alternate  within  him. 
He  has  lost  his  balance,  and  finds  it  hard  to  keep 
the  road.  Notwithstanding  the  magnificent  spiritual 
renewal  which  the  mercy  of  his  Creator  has  worked 
within  him  by  the  supernatural  grace  of  a  sacrament, 
each  man  has  added  to  the  common  fall  a  special 
revolt  of  his  own.  Nay,  most  men  have  repeated, 
imitated,  aggravated  the  act  of  their  first  father.  They 
have  fallen  themselves,  and  their  sin  has  been  accom- 
panied with  peculiarly  disabling  circumstances  of  guilt. 
Then  the  unwearied  compassion  of  the  Creator  has 
come  forth  with  another  sacrament  to  repair  this  per- 
sonal wilful  revolt  of  the  poor  fallen  creature.  With 
its  grace  fresh  upon  him,  he  has  revolted  again,  and 
then  again.  He  has  diversified  his  falls.  He  has 
multiplied  his  treasons  by  varying  their  kind.      He 


72  WHAT  TT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

has  broken,  not  one,  but  numerous  laws,  as  if  to  show 
that  it  was  not  the  hardness  of  any  particular  precept, 
so  much  as  the  simple  fact  of  being  under  God's  yoke 
at  all,  which  he  found  so  unbearable.     And  again  and 
again  and  again  has  the  merciful  sacrament  repaired 
and  absolved   him,  and  grace   goes  on  with   a  brave 
patient  kindness  of  its  own,  fighting  against  seemingly 
incorrigible    habits   of  sin ;    and   even  at  the  hour  of 
death  how  reluctantly  does  mercy  seem  to  capitulate 
to  justice  !     Now  see  how  all  this  affects  his  condition 
as  a  creature.     A  man  born  under  civil  disabilities  has 
no  guilt  in  the  eye  of  his  country's  laws,  yet  he  does 
not  take  rank  with  a  true  citizen.     A  pardoned  crimi- 
nal to  his  last  day  will  not  cast  the  inferiority  which 
he  has  brought  upon  himself.     No  pardon,  no  honours, 
can  ever  cover  the  fact  either  from  others  or  himself. 
Nay,  so  far  as  he  himself  is  concerned,  they  will  only 
keep  the  fact  bright  and  burnished  in  his  mind.     The 
man  who  has  been  tried  and  cast  for  nearly  every  crime 
in  almost  every  court  in  the  land,  and  who  is  at  large 
by  a  simple  and  amazing   act  of  royal  clemency,  must 
feel  that  he  has  made  a  condition  for  himself  which  he 
never   can   forget,  and  out  of  which  he  draws  every 
hour  peculiar  motives  of  conduct  and  demeanour ;  and 
the  better  man  he  becomes,  the  less  likely  is  he  ever  to 
forget  his   past.     So  surely   it  is   with   us  men.     If 
looked  at  without  advertence  to  the  original  fall,  or  to 
our  own  fall,  or  to  our  renewed  falls  after  grace  given, 
what  are  we  but  finite,  dependent,  imperfect :  but  when 
those  three  additional  facts  of  our  real  history  are  added 
to  our  condition,  how  much  more  narrow,  and  little, 
.dependent,    and   inferior  do  we    appear    to    become* 
"The  least  word  seems  too  big  to  express  our  littleness. 
But  we  can  go  lower  still      Pardon  Jo.wera  us. 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  73 

The  abundance  and  frequency  of  mercy  humbles  us, 
The  goodness  of  God  gives  a  new  life  to  the  sense  of  our 
own  misery  and  hatefulness.     It  quickens  our  know- 
ledge of  our  own  inferiority  into  a  positive  feeling  of 
self-contempt.     It  is  true  that    the  first  fall,  and  ous 
own  fall,  and   our  repeated   falls,  all  flow,  voluntary 
though  they  be,  out  of  our  necessary  imperfections  as 
creatures ;  yet  nevertheless  they  add  something  to  the 
consciousness  that  we  are  creatures,  just  as  all  develop- 
ments seem  to  add  to  their  germ,  even  though,  like 
sin,   they    are   not   inevitable   but  free  developments. 
And  then  God's  pardoning  mercy  adds  again  to   our 
consciousness  that  we  are  creatures.     It  appears  to  sink 
us  lower  and  lower  in  our  own  nothingness,  to  envelop 
us  more  and  more  in  the  sense  of  our  createdness.     For 
in  our  sin  God  has  condescended  to  make  a  covenant 
with  us,  and  He  is  hourly  fulfilling  His  share  of  it. 
On  His  part  the  covenant  seems  an  abandonment  of 
His  own  rights,  a  waiving  of  His  own  dignity,  a  service 
gratuitously  given,  or  for  a  nominal    payment  which 
makes  it  less  dignified  than  if  it  were  gratuitous,  a 
lowering  of   Himself   towards   our   level,   a   series  of 
apparent  changes  in  Him  who  in  His  essence  and  know- 
ledge and  will  is  gloriously  and  majestically  immutable. 
All  this  makes  us  feel  more  and  more  intensely  what 
it  is  to  be  a  creature.     The  consciousness  that  clung  to 
the  beautiful  soul  of  the  unfallen  Adam  becomes  a 
deeper  consciousness  to  the  fallen  sinner,  and   that 
deeper  becomes  deepest  in  the  chastened  joy  and  hum- 
bled peace  of  the  forgiven  sinner. 

Thus  each  of  us  finds  himself  in  his  place,  his  own 
allotted  place,  in  nature  and  in  grace,  with  this  threefold 
consciousness  upon  him.  Beneath  the  weight  of  this) 
happy  and  salutary  consciousness  he  has  to  work  out  hi* 


74  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  EE  A  CREATURE. 

destiny.     Criticism  of  his  position  is  not  only  useless; 
so  long  as  he  remembers  himself,  it  is  impossible.     Not 
only  does  he  know  in   the  abstract  that  all  must   be 
right;  he  knows  by  his  feeling  of  being  a  creature  that 
all  is  right.     To  him  criticism  is  not  only  loss  of  time  ; 
it  is  irreligion  also.     He  does  not  know  how  to  sit  in 
judgment  upon  his  Creator.     He  cannot   comprehend 
even  the  mental  process  by  which  others  do  it,  much 
less  the  moral  temper.     For,  while  he  has  this  three 
fold  consciousness  that  he  is  a  creature,  he  cannot  con- 
ceive  of  himself  without  it,  nor  what    he  would    l>e 
like  if  he  was  without  it,  and  therefore  those  who  are 
without  it  are  beyond  his  comprehension  for  the  time- 
both  in  what  they  say  and  do.    There  are  not  two  sides 
to  the  question  of  life,  God's  side  and  man's  side.    God's 
side  is  all  in  all.     Not  only  is  there  nothing  to  be  said 
on  the  other,  there  is  no  other.    To  think  that  man  has 
a  side  is  to  forget  that  he  is  a  creature,  or  at  least  not 
realize  what  it  is  to  be  a  creature.     Encompass  man's 
littleness  with  the  grand    irresponsible  sovereignty  of 
God,  and  then  is  he  glorious  indeed,  his  liberty  large 
beyond  compare,  and  his  likeness  to  God  more  like  an 
equality  with  Him  than  we  can  dare  to  put  in  words. 

Now  let  us  go  back  to  the  man  we  left  sitting  on  the 
hill- top  in  the  brightness  of  the  summer  sun.  We 
have  to  draw  some  conclusions  about  him  from  what 
has  been  already  said ;  and  the  first  is  this.  As  "  crea- 
ture?' is  his  name,  his  history,  and  his  condition,  he 
must  obviously  have  the  conduct  and  the  virtues  befit- 
ting a  creature.  He  must  behave  as  what  he  is.  His 
propriety  consists  in  his  doing  so.,  He  must  be  made 
up  of  fear,  of  obedience,  of  submission,  of  humility,  of 
prayer,  of  repentance,  of  responsibility,  and  above  all,  of 
love.    As  fire  warms,  and  frost  chills,  as   the  moon 


TVI1AT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  75 

filiines  by  night  and  the  sun  by  day,  as  birds  have  wings 
and  trees  have  leaves,  so  must  man,  as  a  creature,  con- 
duct himself  as  such,  and  do  those  virtuous  actions, 
which  are  chit  fly  virtues  because  they  are  becoming  to 
him  and  adapted  to  his  condition.  The  demeanour,  the 
behaviour,  the  excellences  of  a  creature  must  bear  upon 
them  the  stamp  of  his  created  nature  and  condition. 
This  is  too  obvious  to  need  enforcing ;  obvious  when 
stated,  vet  most  strangely  forgotten  by  most  men  during 
the  greater  part  of  their  lives. 

Our  second  conclusion  about  this  man  is  that,  what- 
ever may  be  Ids  attainments  or  Ids  inclinations,  the 
only  knowledge  worth  much  of  his  time  and  trouble, 
the  only  science  which  will  last  with  him  and  stand 
him  in  good  stead,  consists  in  his  study  of  the  character 
of  God.  He  received  everything  from  God.  He  be- 
longs to  Ilim.  He  is  surrounded  by  Him.  His  fate 
ia  in  God's  hands.  His  eternity  is  to  be  with  God,  in 
a  companionship  of  unspeakable  delights.  Or  if  it  is  to 
be  in  exile  from  Him,  it  is  the  absence  of  God  which 
will  be  the  intolerableness  of  his  misery.  His  own 
beinor  implies  God's  being  ;  and  he  exists,  not  for  him- 
self, but  for  God.  Of  what  unspeakable  importance 
then  is  it  for  him  to  find  out  who  God  is,  what  sort  of 
Being  He  is,  what  lie  likes  and  what  He  dislikes,  how- 
He  deals  with  His  creatures  and  how  He  expects  His 
creatures  to  deal  with  Him.  Can  his  understanding 
be  employed  upon  anything  more  exalted?  Is  there 
any  novelty  equal  to  his  daily  fresh  discoveries  in  the 
rich  depths  of  the  Divine  perfections?  Is  there  any 
person  in  the  world  whose  ways  and  works  are  of  such 
thrilling  interest  to  him  as  those  of  the  Three  Uncreated 
Persons,  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost?  Is  there 
any  existing  or  possible  thing  to  be  conceived  or  named 


76  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

one  half  so  curious,  one  half  so  attractive,  one  half  so 
exciting,  as  the  adorable  self-subsisting  Essence  of  the 
Most  High  God  ?  O  no  !  Obviously,  whatever  that  man 
may  be  thinking  of  now,  he  ought  to  be  thinking  of  God. 
As  long  as  he  sits  beneath  the  fragrant  shadow  of 
that  pious  thought,  that  he  is  a  creature,  so  long  will 
he  feel  that  his  one  wise  and  delightful  task,  while  he  13 
a  lodger  among  the  mutable  homes  of  this  swift-footed 
planet,  must  be  the  study  of  his  Creator's  character. 

Our  third  conclusion  is  that,  if  God  is  to  be  the  sub- 
ject of  the  man's  intellectual  occupations,  God  must  be 
equally  the  object  of  his  moral  conduct.  God  must 
have  his  whole  heart  as  well  as  his  whole  mind.  We 
have  no  doubt  that  that  man's  soul  is  a  perfect  mine  of 
practical  energies,  which  the  longest  and  most  active 
life  will  not  half  work  out.  The  muscle  of  the  heart 
acts  seventy  times  a  minute  for  perhaps  seventy  years, 
and  is  not  tired;  yet  what  is  this  to  the  activity  of  the 
soul?  He  has  far  more  energy  in  him  than  his  neigh- 
bours are  aware  of,  more  than  he  suspects  himself.  He 
can  do  wonders  with  these  energies  if  he  concentrates 
them  on  any  object,  whether  it  be  pleasure,  wealth,  or 
power.  Our  conclusion  implies  that,  while  he  may  use 
his  energies  on  any  or  all  of  those  three  things,  he  must 
concentrate  them  on  God  only,  on  the  loving  observance 
of  his  Creator's  law.  We  do  not  see  what  being  a  crea- 
iture  means,  if  it  does  not  mean  this;  though  we  know 
[that  there  are  creatures  who  have  irrevocably  deter- 
mined not  to  do  it,  and  their  name  is  devil,  a  species 
they  have  created  for  themselves  in  order  to  escape  as 
far  as  they  can  to  the  outskirts  of  the  creation  of  eternal 
power  and  love.  Why  be  like  them  ?  Why  go  after 
them?  Why  not  leave  them  to  themselves,  at  the 
dreadful,  dismal  pole  of  our  Father's  empire  ? 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  77 

These  three  conclusions  are  inevitable  results  of  that 
man's  being  a  creature.  If  lie  does  not  intend  to  make 
them  the  law  of  his  life,  he  has  no  business  to  be  in  the 
sunshine.  If  he  wants  to  be  a  god,  let  him  make  a 
world  for  himself.  Ours  is  meant  for  creatures.  Why 
is  he  turning  all  our  bright  and  beautiful  tilings  to 
curse  and  darkness,  all  our  sweet  gifts  to  gall  and  worm- 
wood ?  What  right  has  he  to  be  lighting  the  fires  of 
hell  in  his  own  heart  at  the  beams  of  that  grand  loving 
6un  ?  A  creature  means  "  All  for  God."  Holiness  is 
an  unselfing  of  ourselves.  To  be  a  creature  is  to  have  a 
special  intensified  sonship,  whose  life  and  breath  and 
being  are  nothing  but  the  fervours  of  his  filial  love  taking 
fire  on  his  Father's  bosom  in  the  pressure  of  his  Father's 
arms.  The  Sacred  Humanity  of  the  Eternal  Son, 
beaming  in  the  very  central  heart  of  the  Ever-blessed 
Trinity, — that  is  the  type,  the  meaning,  the  accomplish- 
ment, of  the  creature. 

If  we  take  all  the  peculiarities  of  the  creature  and 
throw  them  into  one,  if  we  sum  them  all  up  and  ex- 
press them  in  the  ordinary  language  of  Christian  doc- 
trine, we  should  say  that  they  came  to  this, — that  as 
man  was  not  his  own  beginning,  so  also  he  is  not  his 
own  end.  His  end  is  God ;  and  man  belies  his  own 
position  as  a  creature  whenever  he  swerves  from  this 
his  sole  true  end.  Every  one  knows  what  it  is  to  have 
an  end  and  how  much  depends  upon  it.  To  change  a 
man's  end  in  life  is  to  change  his  whole  life,  to  revolu- 
tionize his  entire  conduct.  When  he  sees  his  aim  dis- 
tinctly before  him,  he  uses  his  sagacity  in  planning  to 
attain  it,  Lis  courage  in  removing  the  obstacles  which 
intervene,  and  his  prudence  in  the  selection  of  the 
means  by  which  he  is  eventually  to  succeed.  Moro  or 
less  consistently,  and  more  <or  less  incessantly,  the  man's 


73  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE. 

mind  and  heart  are  occupied  about  his  end.  It  forms 
his  character,  it  possesses  his  imagination,  it  stimulates 
his  intellect,  it  engrosses  his  affections,  it  absorbs  bis 
faults,  it  is  his  measure  of  failure  and  success,  it  is  ever 
tending  to  be  his  very  standard  of  right  and  wrong. 
A  creature,  in  that  it  is  a  creature,  is  like  a  falling 
stone.  It  seeks  a  centre,  it  travels  to  an  end,  irresis- 
tibly, impetuously.  This  is  its  law  of  life.  Hence  it  is 
that  the  end  gives  the  colour  to  the  creature's  life,  de- 
scribes it,  defines  it,  animates  it,  rules  it.  This  is  true 
of  pleasure,  of  knowledge,  of  wealth,  of  power,  of  popu- 
larity, when  they  are  sought  as  ends.  They  lay  pas- 
sionate hold  upon  a  man,  and  make  him  their  slave,  and 
brand  their  mark  all  over  him,  and  the  whole  world 
knows  him  to  be  theirs.  But  all  this  is  still  more  true 
when  man  makes  God,  what  God  has  already  made 
Himself,  his  single  and  magnificent  end.  And  how 
glorious  are  the  results  in  his  capacious  soul !  To  make 
God  always  our  end  is  always  to  remember  that  we  are 
creatures ;  and  to  be  a  saint  is  always  to  make  God 
our  end.  Hence  to  be  a  saint  is  always  to  remember, 
and  to  act  on  the  remembrance,  that  we  are  creatures. 
Yet,  horrible  as  it  sounds  when  it  is  put  into  words,  it 
is  the  common  way  of  men  to  make  God  a  means  in- 
stead of  an  end,  a  purveyor  instead  of  a  judge,  if  they 
make  any  use  of  Ilim  at  all.  He  has  to  forecast  for 
their  comforts,  to  supply  their  necessities,  to  pay  for 
their  luxuries.  All  men  seek  their  own,  murmured 
the  indignant  apostle.  To  seek  the  things  of  Christ 
was  his  romance,  which  worldly  disciples  did  not  under- 
stand. How  few  can  turn  round  upon  themselves  at 
any  given  moment  of  life,  when  they  do  nob  happen 
to  be  engaged  in  spiritual  exercises,  and  can  say,  "  God 
is  my  end !    At  this  moment  when  I  unexpectedly  look 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  79 

in  upon  myself,  while  I  was  acting  almost  unconsciously, 
I  finil  that  I  was  doing,  what  a  creature  shoull  always 
be  doing, — seeking  Go. I.  My  worldly  duties  and  social 
occupations  were  understood  to  be  means  only,  and  were 
treated  accordingly.  There  was  nothing  in  my  mind 
and  heart  which  partook  of  the  dignity  of  an  end,  except 
God."  Yet  is  it  not  our  simple  business?  We  expect 
even  a  dog  to  come  when  lie  is  called,  and  a  clock  to  go 
when  it  is  wound  up,  and  in  like  manner  God,  when  lie 
creates  us,  expects  us  to  seek  Him  as  our  only  end  and 
sovereign  good. 

We  are  almost  frightened  at  what  we  have  written. 
We  covenanted  not  to  speak  of  high  things,  nor  entangle 
you  in  discourses  of  spiritual  perfection:  and  we  honestly 
do  not  intend  to  wile  you  to  commit  yourselves  to  any- 
thing which  is  not  common-place  and  necessary.  Yet 
when  we  simply  say  what  it  is  to  be  a  creature,  we  seem 
to  be  demanding  the  highest  sanctity.  The  creature 
seems  to  blip  into  the  saint.  The  natural  temper  and 
disposition  proper  to  us  because  of  our  created  origin 
seems  to  put  on  the  hue  and  likeness  of  supernatural 
grace  and  contemplation,  and  the  common-place  insen- 
sibly to  glide  into  the  heroic.  There  must  be  some  mis- 
take. Where  is  it?  Our  conscience  tells  us  that  wo 
have  been  honourably  checking  ourselves  a  score  of  times 
in  the  last  score  pages,  from  saying  what  was  burning 
in  our  heart  to  come  out.  It  is  not  we  that  have  broken 
faith  with  you,  gentle  reader.  Have  we  then  overstated 
the  case  of  the  creature  ?  Have  we  drawn  any  conclu- 
sion without  a  premiss  to  warrant  it?  Have  we  invented 
what  does  not  exist,  or  falsely  embellished  what  does? 
The  more  we  consider  the  case,  the  less  we  seem  to  have 
done  so.  We  may  have  wearied  you  with  telling  you 
what  was  so  old  and  trite;  we  do  noi  think  we  have  told 


60  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE, 

■you  anything  new,  or  that  there  is  any  part  of  our 
statement  from  which  you  dissent.  How  then  have  we 
come  to  this  pass  ?  Is  it  true  that  every  one  is  obliged 
to  be  what  is  technically  called  a  saint,  or  what  theology 
stjles  perfect,  simply  because  he  is  a  creature?  We 
cannot  say  Yes,  and  yet  we  hardly  dare  say  No.  What 
if  it  be  true  that  perfection  is  only  the  result  of  corres- 
ponding to  grace  as  it  is  given,  and  thus  that  all  good 
people  are  in  the  road  to  perfection  always;  so  that 
perfection  is  not  one  thing,  and  common  holiness 
another ;  but  that  common  holiness  is  perfection  in  its 
childhood,  and  perfection  is  common  holiness  in  its 
maturity  ?  We  will  not  say  that  this  is  so.  But  we 
will  say  thus  much,  that  the  simple  statement  of  our 
position  and  condition  as  creatures  brings  us  to  this — that 
to  serve  God  out  of  love  is  not  the  peculiar  characteristic 
of  what  is  termed  high  spirituality,  but  that,  without 
referecce  to  perfection,  nay  without  reference  to  redemp- 
tion, creation,  of  and  by  itself,  does  bind  the  creature  to 
serve  the  Creator  out  of  love ;  and  we  confess  that  this 
conclusion  is  as  pregnant  of  consequences  as  it  is  inevita- 
ble in  its  truth. 

In  the  last  chapter  we  said  that  a  heathen,  who  with- 
out revelation  should  act  consistently  (if  he  could)  with 
the  constant  remembrance  that  he  was  a  creature,  would, 
"bating  certain  gifts  and  graces,  be  a  portrait  of  a  catho- 
lic saint.  Now  that  we  have  examined  more  in 
detail  the  characteristics  proper  to  a  creature,  and  so 
the  duties  which  become  him,  the  same  truth  comes 
out  still  more  clearly.  What  on  a  superficial  view 
seems  the  peculiar  excellence  of  high  spirituality, 
namely,  that  in  it  God  is  served  out  of  love,  turns  out 
to  be  a  universal  obligation  undeniably  founded  on  the 
simple  fact  of  creation.    Thus  all  practical  religion  ia 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  C3  A  0BBA.TUBB,  SI 

based  upon  a  man's  behaving  himself  becomingly  as  a 
creature.  It  is  the  humility  and  modesty  tliat  coma 
cut  of  that  thought  which  give  to  his  actions  all  their 
gracefulness  and  beauty,  and  commute  them  into  worship 
end  adoration*  When  we  seek  for  the  first  principles 
of  holiness,  we  find  them  where  the  heathen  finds  the 
roots  of  his  moral  duties,  and  where  asceticism  and  mys- 
m  discover  the  axioms  out  of  which  they  draw  un- 
erringly that  vast  series  of  amazing  truths  which  theo- 
logy records  and  classifies.  These  axioms  are  all  implied 
in  the  fact  of  our  creation.  They  are  the  religious 
intuitions  proper  to  a  creature.  Bind  yourself  to  no 
more  than  on  reflection  you  will  acknowledge  yourself 
to  be  bound  to  by  the  simple  fact  that  God  created  you, 
and  then  you  will  become  holy.  It  needs  no  more  than 
that. 

If  we  examine  the  falls  both  of  angels  and  men, 
TVe  shall  see  that  what  lay  at  the  root  of  them  was  a 
forge  tmlness  that  they  were  creatures,  or  a  perverse 
determination  to  be  something  more.  Whether  the 
augels  contemplated  their  own  beauty  and  rested  with 
an^unhallowed  complacency  in  themselves  as  their  end, 
or  whether  they  would  not  bow  to  the  divine  counsel 
of  the  Incarnation  and  exultation  of  Ci-.rist's  human 
nature  above  their  o.vn,  in  both  cases  they  forgot  them- 
selves as  creatures,  and  demanded  what  it  was  not  be- 
coming in  a  creature  to  demand.  You  shall  be  as  gods, 
was  the  very  motive  which  the  tempter  urged  in  order 
to  push  man  to  his  ruin.  Man  insisted  upon  sharing 
something  which  it  had  pleased  God  for  the  time  to 
reserve  to  Himself.  The  knowledge  of  God  was  the 
object  of  Adam's  envy;  and  so  unsuitable  was  it  for 
him  as  a  creature,  that,  when  he  got  it,  it  ceased  to  be 

science,  and  turned  into  guilty  shame.    In  both  cases, 
«  t 


82  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  EE  A  CREATURE. 

it  was  not  merely  that  the  angels  and  man  refused  to 
obey  their  Creator  ;  they  wanted  themselvcR  to  be  more 
than  creatures.  They  would  not  acquiesce  in  their 
created  position.  Can  anything  show  more  plainly  the 
importance  of  keeping  always  before  us  the  fact  that  we 
are  creatures? 

Yes  I    we  may   go   still   higher.      "We   say   of  our 
Blessed  Lord   that  He  is  our  example  as  well  as  our 
mediator.     Yet  lie  was  God  as  well  as  rmm.     What 
is  this  then  but  saying  that  of  such  consequence  was 
it  to  the  happiness  of  man  that  he  should  know  how  to 
behave  himself  as  a  creature,  that  it  was  necessary  the 
Creator  should  take  a  created  nature,  and  come  Himself 
to  show  him  how  to  wear  it?     Thus  one  of  the  many 
known  reasons  of  the  sublime  mystery  of  the  Incarna- 
tion was  that  the  Creator  Himself  might  show  the  crea- 
ture how  he  should  behave  as  a  creature.    What  interest 
does  not  this  throw  upon  the  minutest  incidents  and 
most  rapid  graphic  allusions  of  the  Fuur  Gospels  J    The 
mysteries  of  Jesus  are  man's  studies  of  t' e  beauty  of 
holiness*     His  soul  drinks  beauty  out  of  them,  and  so 
is  imperceptibly  transformed  into  the  likeness  of  God 
made  man.     He  takes  the  form  and   the  hue  of  the 
Incarnate  Word. 

If  we  turn  from  our  Lord's  example  to  His  work  for 
us  as  our  mediator,  the  same  truth  meets  us  in  another 
shape.  Not  only  was  His  created  nature  necessary  for 
this  office  in  the  counsels  of  God,  but  s;  ecial  stress  is 
laid  upon  those  things  which  are  eminently  characte- 
ristic of  a  created  nature  as  create  1.  S  eaking  of  His 
intercession  the  apostle  says  that*1  in  the  da  j  s  of  His  flesh 
He  was  heard  because  He  feared,"  and  again  no  speaks 
of  the  crucifixion  in  the  same  way,  "  He  v>as  obedient 
unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the  Cr^ss."    It  is  as  if 


"WHAT  IT  IS  TO  BE  A  CREATURE.  83 

Jesus  redeemed  the  world  especially  by  acknowledging 
in  an  infinitely  meritorious  manner  through  His  created 
nature  the  sovereignty  and  dominion  of  the  Creator. 

To  sum  up  briefly  the  results  of  this  chapter,  it 
appears,  that  to  be  a  creature  is  a  very  peculiar  and 
cognizible  thing,  that  it  gives  birth  to  a  whole  set  ol 
duties,  obligations,  responsibilities,  virtues,  and  proprie- 
ties, that  it  implies  a  certain  history  past  and  future,  and 
a  certain  present  condition,  that  on  it  are  founded  all 
our  relations  to  God,  and  therefore  all  our  practical 
religion,  and  that  it  involves  in  its  own  self,  without 
reference  to  any  additional  mercies,  the  precise  obliga- 
tion of  loving  our  Creator  supremely  as  our  sole  end, 
and  of  serving  Him  from  the  motive  of  love.  Thus,  as 
we  may  say  to  the  misbeliever  that  he  would  be  a 
catholic  if  he  only  had  an  intelligent  apprehension  of  the 
mystery  of  creation,  so  we  may  say  to  the  catholic  that 
be  would  be  more  like  a  saint,  if  he  only  understood 
with  his  mind  and  felt  in  his  heart,  what  it  was  to  be  a 
creature. 


81 


CHAPTER  III. 

"WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HA.VE  A  CREATOR. 

Bebenms  intelligere  ut  amemus,  non  vero  amare  ut  inteiligamug. 

S.  Anselm. 

As  creatures  we  are  ourselves  surrounded  with 
creatures  in  the  world.  Above  us  and  beneath  us  and 
around  us  there  are  creatures,  of  manifold  sorts  and  of 
varying  degrees  of  beauty.  The  earth  beneath  our  feet, 
end  the  vast  sidereal  spaces  above  us,  are  all  teeming 
with  created  things.  When  we  come  to  reflect  upon 
them,  we  are  almost  bewildered  with  their  number  and 
diversity,  on  the  earth,  in  the  water,  and  in  the  air, 
visible  and  invisible,  known  to  science  or  unknown. 
Then  theology  teaches  us  that  we  are  lying  in  the  mighty 
bosom  of  another  world  of  spiritual  creatures,  whom  we 
do  not  see,  and  yet  with  whom  we  are  in  hourly  rela- 
tions of  brotherhood  and  love.  The  realms  of  spirit 
encompass  us  with  their  unimaginable  distances,  and 
interpenetrate  in  all  directions  our  material  worlds. 
Creation  is  populous  with  angels.  They  are  the  living 
laws  of  the  material  world,  the  wise  and  potent  movers 
of  the  wheeling  spheres.  All  night  and  day  they  bear 
us  company.  They  hold  us  by  the  hand  and  lead  us 
on  our  way.  They  hear  our  words,  and  witness  our 
most  hidden  acts.  The  secrets  of  our  hearts  are  hardly 
ours;  for  we  let  them  transpire  perpetually  by  external 
signs  before  the  keen  vision  of  the  angels.  Nay,  have 
we  not  asked  God  to  let  our  own  angel  see  down  into 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CBEATOB.  85 

our  hearts  and  know  us  thoroughly,  so  that  he  may 
guide  us  better  with  his  affectionate  and  surpassing 
fckill  ?  Because  we  are  creatures,  creatures  exercise  a 
peculiar  influence  over  us.  Love  is  stronger  than  the 
grave.  Blood  and  family  and  country  rule  us  with  an 
almost  resistless  sway.  We  can  so  attach  ourselves  to 
an  unreasoning  animal  as  to  love  it  bcjTond  all  bounds, 
and  to  weep  when  its  bright  little  life  is  taken  from  us. 
The  very  trees  and  fields  of  our  village,  and  the  blue 
dreamy  outline  of  our  native  hills,  can  so  possess  our 
souls  as  to  sway  them  through  a  long  life  of  travel  or  of 
money-making  or  of  ambition.  Alas  !  we  are  so  satu- 
rated with  creatures,  that  we  think  even  of  our  Creator 
under  created  symbols  ;  and  God's  merciful  condescen- 
sions seem  to  show  that  a  material  creature  could  hardly 
worship  with  a  spiritual  worship,  until  the  Creator  had 
kindly  put  on  a  created  nature.  Thus  every  report  of 
the  senses,  every  process  of  the  mind,  every  form  and 
figure  in  the  soul's  secret  chambers  of  imagery,  every 
action  that  goes  out  from  us,  every  pulse  of  our  natural 
life,  the  atoms  of  matter  that  circulate  through  us  in 
swift  and  endless  streams,  clothing  the  soul  with  its  gar- 
ment of  marvellous  texture  which  is  being  woven  and 
unwoven  every  hour,  as  swiftly  as  the  changes  on  a 
dove's  bright  neck, — all  of  them  imply  creatures,  are 
kindled  by  them,  fed  by  them,  lean  upon  them,  and 
c:nnot  for  one  moment  be  disentangled  from  them,  ex- 
cept by  some  most  rare  process  of  supernatural  grace. 
Our  life  seems  inextricably  mixed  up  with  creatures, 
and,  to  use  a  metaphysical  term,  is  unthinkable  without 
them. 

How  difficult  then  is  it  to  conceive  of  a  Life  without 
creatures,  a  Life  which  was  from  everlasting  without 
them,  which  needs  them  not,  which  mixes  them 'not  up 


86  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

with  Itself,  to  which  they  can  add  nothing,  and  from 
which  they  can  take  nothing !  We  have  to  banish  from 
our  minds,  or  to  attempt  it,  the  ideas  of  time  and  space, 
of  body  and  of  motion ;  and  even  then  the  unimaginable 
void,  which  is  not  space,  or  the  colourless  light  which 
is  not  body,  is  still  a  created  image  built  up  of  created 
notions.  There  is  something  unutterably  appalling  in 
a  Life  eternally  by  itself,  self-sufficing,  its  own  glory, 
its  own  knowledge,  its  own  magnificence,  its  own  in- 
tense blessedness,  its  own  silent,  vast,  unthrilling  love. 
Surely  to  think  of  such  a  Life  is  to  worship  it.  But  It 
— it  is  not  It — there  were  no  things  then — it  is  He,  our 
God  and  our  Creator  1  Out  of  that  Life  we  came,  when 
the  Life  had  spent  an  eternity  without  us.  The  Life 
needed  us  not,  was  none  the  happier  because  of  us, 
ruled  not  over  a  wider  empire  through  us,  multiplied 
cot  in  us  the  objects  of  omniscience.  But  the  Life 
loved  us,  and  therefore  out  of  the  Life  we  came,  and 
from  its  glorious  sun-bright  fountains  have  we  filled  the 
tiny  vases  of  our  created  lives.  O  how  the  sublimity  of 
this  faith  at  once  nourishes  our  souls  like  food  and  re- 
creates the  mind  like  rest!  Of  how  many  illusions 
ought  it  not  in  its  magnificent  simplicity  to  disabuse  us! 
The  very  idea  of  the  Life  of  God  before  ever  the  worlds 
were  made  must  of  necessity  give  a  tone  and  a  colour, 
impart  a  meaning,  and  impress  a  character  upon  our  own 
lives,  which  they  would  not  otherwise  have  had.  It 
furnishes  us  with  a  measure  of  the  true  magnitudes  of 
things  which  teaches  us  how  and  what  to  hate  and  des- 
pise, and  how  and  what  to  love  and  esteem.  To  put  the 
thought  into  easier  words,  we  cannot  fully  know  whatiu 
is  to  be  a  creature,  until  we  know  as  fully  as  we  can 
what  it  is  to  have  a  Creator. 
It  is  the  peculiar,  beauty  of  the  Old  Testament  that 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CBEATOR.  87 

it  brings  out  this  truth  to  U9  in  the  most  forcible  ami 
attractive  manner.     This  is  probably  the^secret  of  tho 
hold  which  it  Lays  of  the  minds  of  those  who  have  become 
familiar  with  it  in  early  youth,  and  of  the  deep  basis  of 
religious  feeling    which   it  seems   to   plant   in   them. 
Though  it  is  made  up  of  various  books,  differing  in  date, 
and  scene,  and  style,  though  psalm  and  prophecy  and 
moral  strains  mingle  with  history  and  biography,  every 
oue  feels  that  it  has,  almost  as  completely  as  the  New 
Testament,  one  spirit,  one  tone,  one  colour,  one  scope. 
Whether  it  13  when  Adam  and  Eve  are  doing  penance  in 
Asia,  and  Cain  is  wandering  out  on  the  great  homeless 
earth,  or  whether  it  is  in  the  patriarch's  tent  beneath 
the  starry  skits  of  Mesopotamia,  or  amid  the  brick  fields 
of  the  Nile,  or  the  silent  glens  of  stern  Sinai,  or  during 
the  rough  chivalric  days  of  the  Judges,  or  in  the  palaces 
of  Jerusalem,  or  by  the  waters  of  the  captivity,  whether 
it  be  when  Debbora  is  chanting  beneatli  her  palm,  or  the 
king  of  Israel  is  singing  to  his  harp,  or  amid  the  allegorical 
actions  of  some  wailing  prophet,  or  the  conversations  of 
the  wise  men  of  the  Stony  Arabia,  we  are  ever  learning 
what  it  is  to  be  a  creature,  and  what  it  is  to  have  a 
Creator.    We  are  being  taught  the  character  of  the  God 
of  Abraham  and  of  Isaac  and  of  Jacob,  the  God  that 
was  not  like  the  gods  of  the  heathen.     We  either  see  or 
hear  what  He  desires  of  us,  how  He  will  treat  us,  the 
ways,  so  unlike  human  ways,  in  which  He  loves  us  and 
will  show  His  love,  His  style  of  punishment,  His  mani- 
fold devices  of  mercy,  what  He  meant  human  life  to  be, 
and  how  men  were  to  use  both   each  other  and  the 
earth  which  He  had  given  them  to  farm.     We  do  not 
know  why  it  is  that  a  tale,  the  like  of  which  in  common 
history  would  barely  interest  us,  should  fascinate  us  in 
the  words  of  inspiration,  why  ordinary  things  should 


88  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

seem  sacred  because  they  are  related  there,  and  why 
simple  expressions  should  have  a  latent  spell  within 
them  enabling  them  to  fix  themselves  deep  in  our  souls 
to  be  the  germs  of  a  strong  and  dutiful  devotion  through 
a  long  life,  and  then  be  a  helpful  power  to  us  in  death. 
It  can  only  be  because  it  is  all  so  possessed  with  God. 
The  true  humble  pathetic  genius  of  a  creature  come3 
into  our  souls,  and  masters  them.  The  knowledge  of 
God  becomes  almost  a  personal  familiarity  with  Him, 
and  the  thought  of  Him  grows  into  the  sight  of  Him. 
Look  at  the  fathers  of  the  desert  and  the  elder  saints  of 
the  catholic  church,  and  see  what  giants  of  holiness  they 
were,  whose  daily  food  was  in  the  mysterious  simplicity 
of  the  Sacred  Scriptures!  The  Holy  Book  lies  like  a 
bunch  of  myrrh  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  a  power 
of  sanctification  like  to  which,  in  kind  or  in  degree, 
there  is  no  other,  except  the  sacraments  of  the  Precious 
Blood. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  throw  into  words  the  exact 
result  of  the  knowledge  of  God  which  the  Bible  infuses 
into  us.  It  is  hard  to  fasten  and  confine  in  terms  the 
idea  of  a  Creator.  When  we  try  to  do  so,  something 
seems  to  escape,  to  evaporate,  to  refuse  to  go  into 
words;  and  it  is  just  that  something,  as  we  are  con- 
scious, wherein  most  of  the  power  and  beauty  of  the 
idea  reside.  Just  as  we  may  find  it  hard  to  describe 
the  character  of  our  earthly  mother,  to  refine  upon  her 
peculiarities,  to  select  her  prominent  and  distinguishing 
traits,  and  yet  we  have  an  idea  of  her  so  distinct  that 
we  see  her  more  plainly,  and  know  her  more  thoroughly 
than  any  one  else  we  love,  so  is  it  with  our  knowledge 
and  love  of  God.  We  cannot  look  at  Him  as  simply 
external  to  ourselves.  Things  have  passed  between  us; 
secret  relationships  are  established:  fond  ties  are  knit- 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  89 

ted;  thrilling  endearments  have  heen  exchanged;  there 
are  memories  of  forgivenesses  full  of  tenderness,  and 
memories  of  punishments  even  yet  more  full  of  sweet- 
ness and  of  love;  there  have  been  words  said,  which 
could  never  mean  to  others  what  they  meant  to  us; 
there  have  been  looks  which  needed  not  words  and  were 
more  than  words;  there  have  been  pressures  of  the 
hand  years  ago,  but  which  tingle  yet;  there  are  count- 
less silent  covenants  between  us,  and  with  it  all,  such  a 
conviction  of  His  fidelity!  So  that  it  is  true  to  each 
one  of  us  beyond  our  neighbours,  as  it  was  true  to  the 
Israelites  beyond  other  nations,  Who  is  so  great  a  God 
as  our  God,  and  who  hath  God  so  near? 

We  can  therefore  but  try  to  express  in  cold  and 
va<nie  words  the  idea  which  a  loving  Christian  heart 
has  of  the  Creator.  It  is  plain  that  our  Creator  is  one 
who  stands  in  a  relation  to  us  which  has  no  parallel 
whatever  among  the  relations  which  exist  between  our- 
selves and  other  creatures.  It  is  not  a  question  of 
iee;  it  is  one  of  kind  also.  It  stands  by  itself,  and 
ve  can  compare  it  with  nothing  else.  We  cannot  even 
understand  it  in  its  fulness.  Do  we  know  what  the  act 
of  creating  a  soul  out  of  nothing  implies?  Do  we  com- 
prehend the  difference  between  being  nothing  and  pos- 
sessing an  immortal  life?  Do  we  fathom  what  it  is  to 
be  loved  eternally?  Do  we  quite  take  in  what  it  is  to 
interest  God  in  our  happiness,  and  to  have  Him  em- 
ployed about  u.s?  Do  we  understand  what  it  is  that 
there  should  be  the  infinite  and  everlasting  God,  and 
also,  beside  Him,  something  which  is  not  Himself? 
Yet  unless  we  know  all  these  things,  we  could  not  know 
what  the  relationship  of  creature  and  Creator  involves. 
But  we  can  easily  perceive  so  much  as  this.  Not  only 
is  the  relationship  between  our  Creator  and   ourselves 


SO  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

unlike  anything  else,  without  parallel  and  beyond  com- 
parison, but  it  is  far  closer  than  any  other  tie  of  love  by 
which  the  human  soul  can  possibly  be  bound.  He  is 
obviously  nearer  to  us  than  father  or  mother.  We  come 
more  directly  from  Him  than  from  them.  We  are  more 
bound  up  with  Him,  and  owe  Him  more.  We  cannot 
come  of  age  with  God,  nor  alter  our  position  with  Him. 
We  cannot  grow  out  of  our  dependence  upon  Him,  nor 
leave  the  home  of  IIi3  right  hand.  Tho  act  of  our 
creation  is  not  done  once  for  all,  and  then  ceases.  Pre- 
servation is  but  the  continuance  of  creation,  the  non- 
interruption  of  the  first  act  of  divine  power  and  love. 
The  strong  spirit  of  the  highest  angel  needs  the  active 
concurrence  of  God  every  moment,  lest  it  should  fall 
back  into  its  original  nothingness. 

But  not  only  is  our  relation  to  our  Creator  the  closest 
of  all  relations,  it  is  also  the  tenderest  and  the  dearest. 
Nay  its  sweetness  may  almost  be  said  to  follow  from  its 
closeness;  for  the  closer  the  union,  the  more  perfect 
should  be  the  love.  It  is  not  within  the  power  of  God's 
omnipotence,  if  we  may  speak  so  boldly,  to  make  Him- 
self otherwise  than  infinitely  desirable  to  His  creature. 
He  is  in  Himself  so  surpassingly  beautiful,  so  attrac- 
tively good,  so  unspeakably  compassionate,  that  He 
must  of  necessity  draw  us  towards  Him.  Even  those, 
who  of  their  own  will  are  lost,  struggle  towards  Ilim, 
in  spite  of  their  reluctant  aversion,  with  all  the  might 
uf  their  nature  and  with  the  burning  thirst  of  an  inces- 
ant  desire.  Whatever  then  is  sweet,  whatever  is  de- 
lightful, whatever  is  satisfying,  inhuman  love,  parental 
or  filial,  conjugal  or  fraternal,  is  but  a  poor  shadow  of 
the  love  which  enters  into  the  tie  between  the  Creator 
and  the  creature.  Hence  we  are  not  surprised  to  find 
that  this  tie  is  so  durable  that  it  can  never  be  broken. 


WHIT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOH.  91 

The  child  in  heaven  owes  no  allegiance  to  its  earthly 
father,  and  like  the  saints,  may  be  in  glory  far  above 
him.  In  heaven  there  is  no  marrying  nor  giving  in 
marriage.  The  resurrection  has  emancipated  all  from 
every  earthly  bond.  Whatever  of  earthly  ties  may 
survive  in  heaven,  it  survives  not  as  a  bond.  But  it  is 
not  so  with  the  relation  between  the  creature  and  the 
Creator.  Everywhere  and  always  that  remains  the 
same.  Nay,  as  the  lapse  of  time  is  ever  adding  to  the 
creature's  debt,  swelling  the  huge  sum  of  his  obligations 
for  benefits  received,  opening  out  new  reasons  for  depen- 
dence upon  his  Maker,  and  drawing  him  into  still  closer 
union  with  Him,  we  may  even  say  that  the  tie  is  con 
tinually  acquiring  new  strength,  and  is  being  drawn 
tighter  instead  of  being  relaxed.  It  is  God's  unbounded 
love,  rather  than  His  immense  magnificence,  which 
makes  Him  ever  new  to  us,  and  His  beauty  always  a 
fresh  surprise  and  a  fresh  delight.  It  13  not  only,  to 
use  the  distinction  of  the  psalm,  the  greatness  of  His 
mercy,  but  it  is  the  multitude  of  His  mercies,  which 
make  our  trust  and  confidence  in  Him  so  inexpressibly 
consoling,  and  our  union  with  Him  so  far  more  intimate 
than  any  other  tie  of  which  we  can  conceive.  We  are 
one  with  Him,  as  our  Lord  prayed  we  might  be,  even 
us  the  Father  and  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost  are 
One. 

If  we  endeavour  to  take  to  pieces  the  idea  of  a  Crea- 
tor, it  may  seem  as  if  we  were  raising  idle  questions. 
and  satisfying  a  barren  curiosity  rather  than  minister- 
ing to  solid  edification.  Yet  it  will  not  be  found  so  in 
reality;  and  there  is  no  other  way  by  which  we  can  get 
the  idea  clearly  into  our  minds.  If  then  we  reflect 
attentively  on  the  trains  of  pious  thought  excited  in  us, 
when  we  meditate  on  God's  glorious  and  fatherly  title 


92      WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

of  Creator,  we  shall  find  that  there  are  at  least  nine 
different  considerations  involved  in  it,  none  of  which  we 
could  spare  without  injuring  the  idea. 

When  we  meditate  on  our  Blessed  Lord's  Passion, 
there  is  something  lying  unexpressed  and  only  implicit- 
ly perceived  under  all  our  thoughts,  and  which  gives 
to  the  different  mysteries  their  peculiar  attraction  and 
solemnity.  It  is  our  faith  in  His  Divinity.  However 
exclusively  we  may  seem  to  be  occupied  with  His 
Sacred  Humanity,  we  never  in  reality  for  a  moment 
forget  that  He  is  God.  So  in  like  manner  when  we 
think  of  God  as  a  Father  or  a  Spouse,  however  much 
we  appear  to  ourselves  to  be  engrossed  with  the  pecu- 
liar and  special  relationship  in  which  He  has  been 
pleased  to  reveal  Himself  to  us,  our  whole  mind  is  in 
fact  pervaded  by  the  invisible  thought  that  He  is  of  a 
different  nature  from  ourselves,  that  He  is  in  truth  God, 
and  all  that  is  implied  in  that  blessed  Name;  and  it  is 
just  this  which  makes  us  thrill  all  over  with  joy  and 
surprise  as  we  venture  to  call  Him  by  names  which  we 
could  not  have  used  without  His  permission,  and  which 
are  only  applicable  to  Him  in  a  certain  transcendental 
sense,  which  is  rather  to  be  felt  than  either  spoken  or 
conceived.  The  difference  of  nature  between  Him  and 
us,  which  faith  never  loses  sight  of,  is  the  first  element 
of  the  idea  of  a  Creator,  and  one  which  pervades  all  the 
others.  The  Divine  nature  is  the  grand  thought  which 
is  the  fruitful  mother  of  all  our  thoughts ;  and  by  the 
memory  of  it  are  all  our  memories  magnified. 

But  this  leads  us  still  further.  For  the  difference 
between  His  Nature  and  ours  is  not  like  that  which 
separates  the  angels  from  men,  or  men  from  the  various 
tribes  of  animals  below  them.  It  is  an  infinite  dif- 
terence.    And  thus  when  we  call  Him  Father  or  King, 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  93 

Shepherd  or  Friend,  our  language  implies  only  a  privi- 
lege which  He  allows  to  us,  not  any  duties  to  which 
He  is  bound  or  rights  to  which  we  are  entitled.  We 
have  no  compact  with  God,  except  the  unmerited  enjoy- 
ment of  His  merciful  indulgence.  As  our  Creator  Hia 
rights  are  simply  unfathomable.  He  has  no  duties  to 
us,  nothing  which  can  rigorously  be  called  duties.  He 
has  made  promises  to  us,  and  because  He  is  God,  He  is 
faithful.  But,  as  creatures  we  have  no  claims.  We 
are  bound  to  Him,  and  bound  by  obligations  of  duty, 
and  under  penalties  of  tremendous  severity.  He  on 
His  part  overwhelms  us  with  the  magnificent  liberali- 
ties of  His  unshackled  love.  Yet  God  is  neither  a 
slavemaster  nor  a  despot,  not  only  because  of  His  infi- 
nite goodness  and  unutterable  sweetness,  but  because 
His  rights  are  not  limited  like  theirs.  No  creature  cau 
feel  towards  his  fellow-creature  as  we  feel  towards  Him, 
in  the  grasp  of  whose  omnipotence  we  are  at  once  so 
helpless  and  so  contented.  Though  the  blaze  of  St. 
Michael's  beauty  and  power  were  able  to  put  us  to 
death,  if  we  saw  it  in  the  flesh,  we  could  never  feel  our- 
selves in  his  hands  as  we  are  in  the  hands  of  God. 
Though  we  are  unable  to  imagine  the  risk  we  would 
not  trust  to  Mary,  our  most  dear  and  heavenly  Mother, 
or  to  conceive  anything  which  should  weaken  our  con- 
fidence in  her  one  atom,  yet  it  is  not  in  our  power,  it 
is  not  a  possibility  of  our  nature,  provided  we  know  what 
we  are  about,  to  trust  her  as  we  trust  God,  simply 
because  His  perfections  in  Himself,  and  therefore  His 
rights  over  us,  are  illimitable. 

Hence  also  we  never  think  of  questioning  the  wis- 
dom of  God,  or  His  power,  or  ills  love.  Our  confi- 
dence in  the  worth  of  men  is  in  a  great  measure  pro- 
portioned to  the  degree  in  which  wo  consider  them 


94      WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CUEATOR. 

pledged  to  us,  whether  by  duty,  by  gratitude,  by  rela- 
tionship, by  honour,  or  by  necessity.  Whereas  it  is  just 
the  reverse  with  our  trust  in  God.  Our  confidence  in 
Him  is  boundless,  because  His  sovereignty  over  us  iff 
boundless  also.  We  have  our  doubts  about  holy  per- 
sons: we  criticize  the  saints:  we  take  views  about  the 
angels.  There  is  nothing  in  creation  which  we  do  not 
seem  to  have  some  sort  of  right  to  question.  But  with 
God  it  is  not  so.  Here  we  are  simple  belief,  implicit 
reliance,  unhesitating  dependence.  We  should  be  mad 
to  have  any  other  thoughts  where  lie  is  concerned. 

Then,  as  we  cannot  question  Him,  we  must  take  Him 
on  faith.  It  does  not  perplex  our  dealings  with  Him, 
that  we  do  not  understand  Him.  His  height  above  us 
does  not  obscure  our  perception  of  His  sovereignty. 
We  can  trust  Him  without  knowing  Him.  We  listen 
and  obey,  even  when  He  gives  no  reasons  ;  for  we  know 
that  we  should  possibly  not  appreciate  His  reasons  if  Ho 
gave  them,  and  that  no  reasons  could  enhance  our  cer- 
tainty that  His  orders  are  the  perfection  of  what  is  just 
and  holy,  compassionate  and  good.  Our  fellow-men 
must  bo  reasonable,  if  they  w ■mil  govern  us  and  use  us 
for  their  purposes.  But  Go  i's  will  is  to  us  above  all 
reason,  more  convincing  than  all  argument,  more  per- 
suasive; than  any  reward,  because  of  the  very  infmite- 
ness  of  His  superiority  over  us.  We  take  Go  1  on  faith, 
because  He  is  God ;  and  we  take  nothing  else  on  faith 
except  so  far  as  we  account  it  to  represent  God,  either 
as  His  instrument,  or  His  representative,  or  His  like- 
ness in  goodness,  injustice,  in  fidelity,  or  in  love. 

Thus  looking  at  our  Creator  as  it  were  outside  of 
ourselves,  we  form  an  idea  of  Him,  and  of  our  relations 
to  Him,  which  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  His  un- 
speakable eminence  in  power,  in  wisdom,  and  in  good- 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  95 

nesg.  The  nothingness  to  which  He  lias  given  life,  and 
being,  and  His  own  image,  has  a  secret  bond  to  Ilim, 
which  has  more  to  do  with  its  worship  of  Him  than 
even  His  superlative  excellence  and  unimaginable  glory. 
But  the  idea  of  a  Creator  is  vet  more  singular,  more 
isolated,  more  special,  and  more  intimate.  For  we  are 
never  really  outside  of  God  nor  He  outside  of  us.*  He 
is  more  with  us  than  we  are  with  ourselves.  The  soul 
is  less  intimately  in  the  body,  than  He  is  both  in  our 
bodies  and  our  souls.  He  as  it  were  flows  into  us,  or 
we  are  in  Ilim  as  the  fish  in  the  sea.  We  use  God,  if 
we  may  dare  to  say  so,  whenever  we  make  an  act  of  our 
will,  and  when  we  proceed  to  execute  a  purpose.  He 
has  not  merely  given  us  clearness  of  head,  tenderness  of 
heart,  and  strength  of  limb,  as  gifts  which  we  may  use 
independently  of  Him  when  once  He  has  conferred 
them  upon  us.  But  He  distinctly  permits  and  actually 
concurs  with  every  exercise  of  them  in  thinking,  loving, 
or  acting.  This  influx  and  concourse  of  God,  as  theolo- 
gians  style  it,  ought  to  give  to  us  all  our  lives  long  the 
sensation  of  being  in  an  awful  sanctuary,  where  every 
sight  and  sound  is  one  of  worship.  It  gives  a  peculiar 
and  terrific  character  to  acts  of  sin.  It  is  hard  to  see 
how  levity  even  is  not  sacrilege.  Everything  is  pene- 
trated with  God,  while  His  inexpressible  purity  is  all 
untainted,  and  His  adorable  simplicity  unmingled  with 
that  which  He  so  intimately  pervades,  enlightens,  ani- 
mates, and  sustains.  Our  commonest  actions,  out 
lightest  recreations,  the  freedoms  in  which  we  most 
unbend,  —all  these  things  take  place  and  are  transacted, 
not  so  much  on  the  earth  and  in  the  ail*,  as  in  the  bosom 
of  the  omnipresent  God. 

•  Some  writers,  In  avoiding  pantheism,  seem  to  deny  one-while  oinnl- 
preseuce.  and  anuthcr-wliile  providence. 


96  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

Thus  when  we  use  the  words  "  dependence,"  M  sub- 
mission,'* "helplessness,''  "confidence,"  about  our  rela- 
tion to  God,  we  are  using  words  which,  inasmuch  as 
they  express  also  certain  relations  in  which  we  may 
possibly  stand  to  our  fellow-creatures,  are  really  inade- 
quate to  express  our  position  towards  our  Creator. 
We  have  no  one  word  which  can  fully  convey  to  the 
mind  the  utterness  of  that  honourable  abjection  in  which 
we  lie  before  Him  who  made  us.  But  this  is  not  all. 
The  liberality  of  God  is  not  satisfied  with  pouring  out 
upon  us  in  such  profusion  the  wonderful  gifts  of  a 
reasonable  nature,  He  enriches  us  still  more  nobly,  He 
unites  Himself  to  us  still  more  intimately,  by  the  yet 
more  marvellous  gifts  of  grace.  Sanctifying  grace  is 
nothing  less  than  a  participation  of  the  Divine  Nature. 
If  we  try  to  think  of  this,  we  shall  soon  perceive  that 
even  imagination  cannot  master  the  greatness  and  the 
depth  of  this  stupendous  gift,  any  more  than  it  can  sen- 
sibly detect  the  manner  of  its  intimate  existence  within 
us,  or  the  delicacy  of  its  manifold  and  incessant  opera- 
tions when  stirred  by  the  impulses  of  actual  grace 
within  our  souls.  "  God,''  says  Thauler,*  "  has  created 
us  for  so  high  a  degree  of  honour,  that  no  creature 
could  ever  have  dared  to  imagine  that  God  would  have 
chosen  it  for  so  great  a  glory;  and  we  ourselves  are 
now  unable  to  conceive  how  He  could  raise  us  higher 
than  He  has  done.  For,  as  He  could  not  make  us 
Gods  by  nature,  a  prerogative  which  can  belong  to  Him 
alone,  He  has  made  us  Gods  by  grace,  in  enabling  us 
to  possess  with  Him,  in  the  union  of  an  eternal  love, 
one  same  beatitude,  one  same  joy,  one  same  kingdom." 
The  fact  that  God  created  angels  and  men  at  first  in  a 
State  of  grace  and  not  merely  in  a  state  of  nature,  and 

•  Iustitut.  cap.  viii. 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  IIAYE  A  CREATOR.  97 

then  further  that  lie  heaps  upon  us  now  such  an  abun- 
dance of  grace  and  makes  us  members  of  Himself  by 
the  Incarnation,  causes  us  to  feel  that  He  did  not  create 
us  to  be  simply  His  subjects  and  outside  of  Himself, 
but  to  be  drawn  up  to  Himself,  to  live  with  Him,  to 
6hare  His  blessedness,  nay,  and  His  nature  too.  More- 
over our  continual  dependence  upon  grace,  upon  gifts 
which  are  by  no  means  due  to  us  as  creatures,  but 
which  are  simply  supernatural,  compels  us  to  acknow- 
ledge that  we  cannot  even  do  the  good  we  intensely 
desire  to  do,  except  by  a  sort  of  miraculous  communion 
with  Him  ;  and  this  gives  to  our  dependence  upon  God 
another  of  its  peculiar  characteristics. 

But  He  is  not  only  our  first  cause  and  fountain,  not 
only  our  constant  living  preservation,  not  only  the 
source  of  supernatural  gifts  and  graces  over  and  above 
the  ornaments  of  our  nature,  not  only  Himself  the 
original  of  which  He  vouchsafed  to  make  us  copies,  but 
He  is  also  our  last  end.  And  He  is  so  in  two  senses. 
He  is  our  last  end,  because  He  is  the  reason  of  our 
existing  at  all,  because  it  i3  for  Him,  for  His  own  glory, 
that  we  live,  and  not  in  any  way  for  our  own  sakes : 
and  He  is  also  our  last  end,  because  we  go  to  Him,  and 
rest  nowhere  but  in  Himself,  not  in  any  gifts  which 
He  gives  us,  but  simply  in  His  own  living  and  ever- 
blessed  Self.  Our  eternity  reposes  on  Him,  and  is  in 
Him,  and  with  Him,  and  is  the  sight  of  Him,  and  Hia 
embrace.  This  is  something  which  no  creature,  nor  all 
creation  together,  can  share.  It  is  the  sole  prerogative. 
of  God,  and  one  which  gives  out  a  whole  class  of  affec- 
tions proper  to  itself.  Nothing  in  life  has  any  meaning, 
except  as  it  draw.s  us  further  into  God  and  presses  us 
more  closely  to  Him.  The  world  is  no  better  than  a 
complication  of  awkward  riddles,  or  a  gloomy  store* 
7     i 


98  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  EAVE  A  CREATOR. 

house  of  disquieting  mysteries,  unless  we  look  at  it  by 
the  light  of  this  simple  truth,  that  the  eternal  God  is 
blessedly  the  last  and  only  end  of  every  soul  of  man. 
Life  as  it  runs  out  is  daily  letting  us  down  into  His 
Bosom;  and  thus  each  day  and  hour  is  a  step  home- 
ward, a  danger  over,  a  good  secured. 

Hence  it  is,  because  God  alone  is  our  last  end,  that 
He  alone  never  fails  us.  All  else  fails  us  but  He. 
Alas!  how  often  is  life  but  a  succession  of  worn-out 
friendships !  Youth  passes,  with  its  romance,  and 
crowds  whom  we  loved  have  drifted  away  from  us. 
They  have  not  been  unfaithful  to  us,  nor  we  to  them. 
We  have  both  but  obeyed  a  law  of  life,  and  have 
exemplified  a  world-wide  experience.  The  pressure  of 
life  has  parted  us.  Then  comes  middle  life,  the  grand 
Beason  of  cruel  misunderstandings,  as  if  reason  were 
wantoning  in  its  maturity,  and  by  suspicions  and  cir- 
cumventions and  constructions  were  putting  to  death 
our  affections.  All  we  love  and  lean  upon  fails  us. 
We  pass  through  a  succession  of  acquaintanceships ; 
we  tire  out  numberless  friendships ;  we  use  up  the 
kindness  of  kindred ;  we  drain  to  the  dregs  the  confi- 
dence of  our  fellow-labourers  ;  there  is  a  point  beyond 
which  we  must  not  trespass  on  the  forbearance  of  our 
neighbours.  And  so  we  drift  on  into  the  solitary 
havens  of  old  age,  to  weary  by  our  numberless  wants 
the  fidelity  which  deems  it  a  religion  to  minister  to 
our  decay.  And  there  we  see  that  God  has  outlived 
and  outlasted  all :  the  Friend  who  was  never  doubtful, 
the  Partner  who  never  suspected,  the  Acquaintance  who 
loved  us  better,  at  least  it  seemed  so,  the  more  evil 
He  knew  of  us,  the  Fellow-labourer  w'io  did  our  work 
for  us  as  well  as  His  own,  and  the  Neighbour  who 
thought  He  bad  never  done  enough  for  us,  the  sole 


TYIUT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  S9 

Superior  who  was  neither  rude  nor  inconsiderate,  tha 
one  Love,  that  unlike  all  created  loves,  was  never  cruel, 
exacting,  precipitate,  or  overbearing.  He  lias  had 
ience  with  us,  has  believed  in  us,  and  has  stood  by 
us.  What  should  we  have  done  if  we  had  not  had  Him  ? 
All  men  have  been  liars ;  even  those  who  seemed  saints 
broke  down,  when  our  imperfections  leaned  on  them, 
and  they  wounded  us,  and  the  wound  was  poisoned  ;  but 
He  has  been  faithful  and  true.  On  this  account  alono 
He  is  to  us  what  neither  kinsman,  friend,  or  fellow- 
labourer  can  be. 

The  more  deeply  we  enter  into  these  plain  truths 
and  the  more  assiduously  we  meditate  upon  them,  the 
more  we  find  growing  over  us  a  certain  humility,  which 
consists  not  so  much  in  prostrating  ourselves  before  tho 
majesty  of  God,  as  in  a  kind  of  hatred  of  ourselves 
which  increases  together  with  our  increase  in  the  love 
of  God.  It  is  not  the  contempt  of  our  own  vileness 
which  follows  after  sin,  and  is  a  part  of  Christian  re- 
pentance. It  is  not  like  that  fresh  burst  of  love  to  God, 
which  follows  when  He  has  inflicted  some  just  punish- 
ment upon  us  for  our  sins,  and  which  turns  our  hearts 
■with  such  exceeding  tenderness  towards  Him.  It  is 
a  sort  of  ignoring  of  our  own  claims  and  interest,  a  for- 
getting of  ourselves  because  of  the  keenness  of  our  re- 
membrance of  God,  and  an  abandonment  of  our  own 
cause  for  His :  and  all  this  with  a  sort  of  dislike  of 
ourselves,  of  patient  impatience  with  our  own  meanness, 
a  pleasure  in  acknowledging  our  own  un worthiness,  like 
the  pleasure  of  a  contrite  confession,  a  grateful  wonder 
that  God  should  treat  us  so  differently  from  what  we 
deserve,  and  ultimately  a  desire  to  remind  Him  of  our 
own  self-abasement,  of  that  intolerable  demerit  of  ours, 
which  He"  seems  in  His  mercy  so  entirely  to  forget* 


100  "WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CKEATOR. 

In  a  word,  self-abasement  is  the  genius  of  a  creature  as 
a  creature;  it  is  his  most  reasonable  frame  of  mind; 
it  is  that  which  is  true  about  him  when  all  else  is  false. 
Yet  in  apparent  contradiction  to  this  self-hatred,  the 
idea  of  our  Creator  is  accompanied  with  a  familiarity, 
for  which  it  is  difficult  to  account,  but  which  seems  an 
essential  part  of  our  filial  piety  towards  our  Heavenly 
Father.  We  can  say  to  Him  what  we  cannot  say  to 
our  fellow-creatures.  We  can  take  liberties  with  Him, 
which  in  nowise  impair  our  reverence.  We  are  more 
at  ease  when  only  His  eye  is  full  upon  us  than  when 
the  gaze  of  men  is  fixed  upon  our  actions.  He  mis- 
understands nothing.  He  takes  no  umbrage.  He 
makes  us  at  home  with  Him.  Childlike  simplicity  is 
the  only  ceremonial  of  our  most  secret  intercourse  with 
Him.  His  presence  does  not  oppress  our  privacy.  His 
knowledge  of  our  nature,  or  rather  our  knowledgo 
that  He  created  it,  gives  us  a  kind  of  familiarity  with 
Him,  for  it  is  a  question  of  kind  rather  than  of  degree, 
such  as  we  can  never  have  with  the  great  ones  of 
the  earth,  nor  even  with  those  nearest  and  dearest  to 
us.  We  could  not  bear  to  let  our  fellow  creatures 
always  see  us.  But  nothing  makes  us  common  to  God. 
He  never — may  we  say  it  ? — loses  His  reverence  for 
those  whom  He  has  deigned  eternally  to  love.*  There 
is  no  need  of  concealment  with  Him,  who  sees  through 
us,  who  regards  the  acknowledgment  of  our  manifold 

*  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  as  if  a  whole  revelation  of  God  were  in  those 
words  of  the  Book  of  Wisdom  (xii.  18.)  Cum  magna  reverentia  disponis  nos. 
Most  of  the  modern  Douays  render  it,  With  great  favour  Thou  disposesc 
of  us,  thereby  missing  both  the  beauty  and  the  meaning.  The  old  Douay, 
•which  has  seldom  been  altered  for  the  better  by  modern  hands,  translates  the 
verse,  But  Thou,  Dominatour  of  power,  judgest  with  tranquilitie,  and  with 
great  reverence  disposest  of  us;  for  it  is  in  Thy  power,  when  Thou  wilt, 
to  be  able.  The  Greek  of  the  Septuagint  is  /jlito.  jrsMitf  qulous  huxiis  \u.dc. 
JThe  passago  is  a  perfect  fountain  of  meditation. 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  101 

weakness  almost  as  acceptable  worship  of  His  Majesty, 
and  to  whom  our  infirmities  are  His  own  laws,  and  our 
indignities  but  the  timely  exhibition  of  our  needs. 

Such  are  the  considerations  which  make  up  our  idea 
of  a  Creator  in  our  minds.  They  lie  there  implicitly. 
Sometimes  we  realize  them,  sometimes  not.  Now  one 
of  them  starts  to  view,  and  for  a  while  occupies  our 
thoughts,  and  now  another.  But  on  the  whole  this  is 
what  the  idea  comes  to  when  it  is  analyzed.  We  think 
of  Him  as  one  who  is  not  like  our  parents,  because  Ha 
is  not  of  the  same  nature  with  us,  of  one  whose  rights 
are  illimitable  and  rest  on  no  compact,  of  one  whose 
wisdom,  power,  and  love  we  may  not  question,  and 
whom  therefore  we  must  take  on  faith,  and  trust,  simply 
because  of  the  infiniteness  of  His  superiority ;  of  one 
who  penetrates  us  with  the  influx  of  His  omnipresence, 
and  concurs  with  all  our  movements,  who  enlightens 
nature  with  grace,  and  as  our  last  end  recompenses 
grace  with  glory;  to  trust  in  whose  never-failing  faith- 
fulness is  as  much  a  joy  as  it  is  a  necessity,  to  love 
wliom  is  to  despise  ourselves,  and  yet  with  whom  we 
are  on  terms  of  mysterious  intimacy  far  transcending 
the  closest  equalities  and  most  unreproved  freedoms  ct 
any  human  tie.  This  is  our  idea  of  a  Creator  ;  all  these 
things  seem  to  follow  from  our  knowledge  of  that  eternal 
Love,  who  saw  us  from  the  first,  and  when  the  time 
came  called  us  out  of  nothing.* 

•  Thus  the  delighted  admission  of  the  very  absoluteness  of  God's  sover- 
eignty over  us  seems  to  bring  us  to  a  more  manifest  equality,  a  more  privi- 
leged intimacy  with  Him,  than  that  view  of  God  which  represents  the  rela- 
Of  Creator  and  creature  as  a  beautifully  just  discharge  of  mutual 
oMifrations,  wherein  He  respects  the  charter  He  has  Riven  us.  and  we  obey 
His  laws  as  well  as  His  knowledge  of  our  weakness  gives  Ilim  a  right  to 
expect.  I  have  not  a  word  to  itj  of  condemnation  of  that  system  of  theology 
l  b  endeavours  to  cie.tr  the  relationship  of  Creator  and  creature  of  all 
uitfkulty,  and  justifies  God  to  man  by  representing  Uim  as  exercising  over  a* 


102  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

To  analyze  our  idea  of  a  Creator  is  the  first  step 
towards  answering  the  question  we  proposed  to  our- 
selves, What  it  is  to  have  a  Creator.  We  have  now  to 
take  a  further  step.  If  our  Creator  is  such  as  we  have 
described,  if  the  fact  of  His  having  condescended  to 
create  us  puts  Him  in  such  a  position  towards  us,  what 
must  the  service  of  Him  necessarily  be  to  us  Ilia 
creatures  ?  The  service  of  the  Creator  must  obviously 
be  the  end  and  purpose  of  the  creature.  God  is  His 
own  end;  and  He  is  ours  also.  Everything  short  of 
God  is  to  the  creature  a  means,  not  an  end,  something 
transitory,  and  not  permanent,  something  in  which  at 

a  sort  of  limited  sovereignty  which  fully  satisfies  our  ideas  of  perfect  equity, 
such  equity  as  subsists  between  a  powerful  monarch  and  his  subjects.  But 
lam  quite  unable  to  receive  such  a  system  of  belief  into  myself.  A  contro- 
versialist who  makes  out  that  there  are  no  difficulties  in  revelation  seems  to  me 
to  prove  too  much ;  for  to  say  that  a  disclosure  from  an  Infinite  Mind  to  finite 
minds  is  all  easy  and  straightforward,  is  almost  to  say  that  there  is  no  such 
disclosure,  or  that  the  one  claiming  to  be  so  received  is  not  divine.  So  in 
like  manner,  when  we  consider  what  it  is  to  be  a  creature,  and  what  it  is  to 
have  a  Creator,  we  cannot  but  suspect  a  theological  system  which  represents 
our  relations  with  our  Creator  as  beset  with  no  difficulties,  and  makes  all  our 
dealings  with  Him  as  smooth  and  intelligible  as  if  they  were  between  man 
and  man.  It  makes  me  suspicious,  because  it  proves  so  much,  and  this  quite 
irrespectively  of  any  of  its  arguments  in  detail.  There  must  be  at  the  least 
tiJoak  of  overbearing  power,  and  an  exhibition  of  justice  unlike  the  fairness  of 
hitman  justice,  or  I  shall  not  easily  be  persuaded  that  the  case  between  God 
and  man  has  been  stated  candidly  or  even  quite  reverently.  It  is  indeed  an 
act  of  love  of  God,  as  well  as  of  our  neighbour,  to  make  religious  difficulties 
plain;  but  he  is  a  bold  controversialist  who  in  an  age  of  general  intelligence 
denies  the  existence  of  difficulties  altogether,  or  even  under-estimates  their 
force;  and  as  the  facts  on  man's  side  are  too  obvious  to  be  glossed  over,  the 
temptation  is  almost  irresistitde  to  make  free  with  God,  and  to  strive  to 
render  Him  more  intelligible  by  lowering  Him  to  human  notions.  In  the 
long  run  this  method  of  controversy  must  lead  to  unbelief.  Most  men  are 
more  satisfied  by  an  honest  admission  of  their  difficulty  than  by  an  answer 
to  it;  few  answers  are  complete,  and  common  sense  will  never  receive  a 
religion  which  is  represented  as  having  no  difficulties.  It  forfeits  its  cha- 
racter of  being  divine,  by  making  such  a  claim.  Religion,  as  such,  cannot 
be  attractive,  unless  it  is  also  true;  and  when  we  are  sure  of  the  truth,  we 
must  not  mind  its  looking  unattractive,  but  trust  it,  as  from  God,  and  there- 
fore, as  His,  possessed  of  a  secret  of  success  which  will  carry  it  securely  to 
iu  cud. 


WHAT  IT  18  TO  IIAYE  A  CREATOR.  103 

best  we  can  have  but  a  fitful  joy,  not  a  contented  and 
blessed  rest.     The  value  of  everything  in  life  depends 
on  its  power  to  lead  us  to  God  by  the  shortest  road. 
But  as  the  service  of  God  is  the  creature's  real  work,  so 
also  is  it  his  true  dignity.     The  rank  and  pageantry  ot 
the  world  cannot  clothe  us  with  real  dignity.     To  serve 
God  is  the  only  honour,  which  it  is  worth  our  while  to 
6trive  after.     The  order  of  holiness  is  to  the  eyes  of 
the  enlightened  angels  the  only    authentic  precedence 
in  the  world.     So  what  is  man's  true  dignity  is  also 
Ids   greatest    happiness.      We   do    not    value    as    wo 
ought  our  inestimable  privilege    of   being    allowed  to 
worship    God.      We  do  not  prize  our    heavenly  pre- 
rogative of   being  permitted    to   keep  His  command- 
ments.    We   look  at   that  as  a  struggle  which    is  in 
truth  a  crown.     We    look    at    that    as  an    obligation 
which    is   more    properly  a  boon.     We   call   it   duty 
when    its   lawful  name    is  right,   the   right   of   best- 
beloved  sons.     Have  not  millions  tried  to  be  happy  in 
something  which  was  not  the  service  of  their  Creator, 
and  how  many  of  them  have  succeeded?     And  did  ever 
one  creature  seek  his  happiness  in  God,  and  not  find 
unspeakably  more  than  he  had  ventured  to  conceive  ? 
Why,  the  very  austerity  of  the  saint  is  more  lighthearted 
than  the  gaiety  of  the  worldling.     So  many  men  die  in 
a  minute  the  world  over,  and  what  is  the  last  lesson  of 
every  one  of  them,  but  that  the  service  of  God  is  the 
highest  happiness  of  man  ? 

But  we  talk  of  interest.  Interest  leads  the  world. 
It  is  self-love's  god.  It  is  strong  enough  to  warp  tho 
6toutest  mind,  and  to  beat  down  the  most  romantic 
affections.  All  things  give  way  to  interest.  The 
days  of  chivalry  are  past ;  and  perhaps  when  they 
were  present,  interest  was  as  much  the  crowned  king 


104  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

of  society  as  it  is  now.  Yet  if  the  best  interest 
is  that  which  is  first  of  all  most  secure,  and  thea 
most  abundant,  and  after  that  most  lasting,  and 
finally  to  be  gained  with  the  least  outlay,  what  interest 
can  compare  with  our  interest  in  serving  God,  and 
speculating  only  on  His  favour  and  fidelity  ?  We  talk 
of  wisdom  also.  These  are  days  of  wisdom.  Know- 
ledge covers  the  earth  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea. 
Yet  the  prophecy  is  not  fulfilled,  for  it  is  hardly  the 
knowledge  of  God  which  abounds  amongst  us.  But 
if  that  be  the  highest  wisdom  which  sees  furthest 
and  clearest,  which  embraces  the  greatest  number  of 
truths,  and  the  highest  kind  of  truths,  which  contem- 
plates them  .with  the  most  complete  and  accurate 
certainty,  and  which  is  of  practical  use  to  all  eternity, 
then  what  earthly  wisdom  will  compare  with  the  wisdom 
of  servin»  God  ?     How  is  it  that  we  are  so  fascinated 

o 

by  the  various  sciences  of  mind  and  matter,  and  yet 
find  theology  so  tame  and  dull  ?  Why  is  it  that  we 
are  so  excited  by  a  new  book  on  geology  or  chemistry, 
and  turn  away  with  weariness  from  the  old-fashioned 
traditions  of  the  Christian  Church  ?  Surely  it  is  be- 
cause we  have  no  love  of  God,  because  we  do  not  keep 
up  our  relations  with  Him  as  our  Creator.  Were  it 
not  so,  we  should  find  our  modern  sciences  uninteresting 
in  their  details  and  sterile  in  results,  unless  we  our- 
selves make  a  theological  commentary  upon  them  as  we 
read. 

Liberty  is  another  idol  of  the  sons  of  men,  and 
one  whose  worship  is  of  all  false  worships  the  least 
blameworthy,  although  the  greatest  of  crimes  have  been 
perpetrated  in  its  name.  Yet  what  does  our  liberty 
amount  to?  Freedom  of  action,  of  speech,  and  of  pen, 
are    indeed    noble    achievements    of   civilization  and 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  IUVE  A  CREATOR.  105 

mighty  missionaries  of  the  Gospel  too.  Yet  is  r\ 
man  really  free  who  is  not  free  from  self?  If  he  is  a 
slave  to  base  passions,  or  the  tool  of  his  own  spite  and 
malice,  or  the  pander  to  his  own  criminal  pursuits,  or 
the  victim  of  his  own  self-love,  with  what  kind  of  liberty 
is  lie  free?  If  he  is  chained  down  to  earth,  then  lie 
is  disabled  for  the  liberty  of  heaven.  If  he  has  prac- 
tically sold  himself  to  the  evil  angels,  who  is  more  a 
bondsman  than  he?  From  satan,  world,  and  Self  there 
is  no  liberty,  but  in  the  service  of  our  Creator:  and 
His  service  is  liberty  indeed,  not  only  the  truest  and 
the  sweetest,  but  the  widest  also.  0  for  the  uncon- 
strained spirit  of  the  saints,  who  have  cut  off  all  ties  and 
snapped  all  bonds  asunder,  that  they  might  fly  away  and 
be  with  Christ  ! 

The  service  of  the  Creator  is  also  the  creature's 
most  enduring  reality.  The  unreality  of  the  world 
is  an  old  story.  It  was  told  in  Athens,  before  ever  our 
Saviour  preached  in  Palestine.  It  is  a  miserable  thing 
to  build  on  sand,  or  to  give  our  money  for  that  which  is 
not  bread.  Yet  it  is  what  we  are  all  of  us  doing  all 
our  lives  long,  except  when  we  are  loving  God.  Human 
love  is  a  treachery  and  a  delusion.  It  soon  wears 
threadbare  and  we  die  of  cold.  Place  and  office  slip 
from  us,  when  our  hands  get  old  and  numb,  and  cannot 
grasp  them  tight.  Eiches,  says  the  Holy  Ghost,  make 
to  themselves  Avings  and  fly  away.  Good  health  is 
certainly  a  boundless  enjoyment;  but  it  is  always  giving 
way  beneath  us,  and  our  years  of  strength  are  after  all 
but  few,  and  our  vigour  seems  to  go  when  we  need  ifc 
most.  There  is  a  noiseless  unrivetincr  of  our  strength 
by  the  lapse  of  years,  which  comes  before  old  age,  and 
is  more  prostrating  than  any  sickness.  But  the  service 
of  God  improves  upon  acquaintance,  gives  more  than  it 


106  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

promises,  and  after  a  little  effort  is  nothing  but  rewards, 
and  rewards  which  endure  for  evermore. 

But  this  is  not  all.      Not  only  are  all  these  tilings 
the  truest,  greatest,  highest,  wisest,  best,  widest,  and 
most   enduring    dignity,   happiness,   interest,  wisdom., 
liberty,  and  reality ;  but  the  service  of  the  Creator  is 
the   creature's   sole   end,    dignity,   happiness,   interest, 
wisdom,  liberty,  and  reality.     He  has  no  other,  none 
that  have  a  right  to  the  name,  none  that  are  not  pre- 
tenders ;  and  he  who  seeks   any  other  will  never  find 
them.     However  deliberate  his  evil  choice,  he  will  not 
gain  earth  by  forfeiting  heaven.     If  he  works  for   Here, 
he  will  lose  Here  as  well  as  Hereafter.     Whereas  if  he 
works  for  Hereafter,  he  will  gain  Here  as  well.     More- 
over the  service  of  the  Creator  is  not  only  the  creature's 
solitary  end,  dignity,  happiness,  interest,  wisdom,  liberty, 
and  reality ;  but  the  opposite  evils  of  all  these  things 
will  flow  from  its  neglect.     In  a  word,  unless  we  serve 
God,  the  world  is  a  dismal,  unmeaning  heart-breaking 
wilderness,  and  life  no  more  than  an  insoluble  and  un- 
profitable problem.  Look  how  cruel  life  is  to  the  wicked 
man !    Take  him  at  his  best  estate,  reckon  up  the  pains 
he  takes,  the  efforts  he  makes,  the  activity  he  expends, 
how  he  is  burnt  up  with  the  fever  of  insatiable  desires, 
running  a  race   after   impossible   ends,   impoverishing 
heart  and  mind  with  excitements  which  are  their  own 
punishment;  what  a  tyranny  the  slow  lapse  of  time  is 
to  him,  what  a  bitter  stepmother  the  world  he  has  so 
adored!     The  flood-tide  of  irritation  and  then  the  ebb 
of  helpless  languor,  who  would  live  a  life  of  which  those 
are  the  incessant  alternations?    The  wilful  sinner  is  but 
a  man  who,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  God,  explores,  to  his 
own  cost,  every  species  of  disappointment,  and  nowhere 
finds  contentment  or  repose. 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  107 

What  is  it  that  we  have  said  ?     The  service  of  the 
Creator  is  the  creature's  last  end,  his  true  dignity,  his 
greatest  happiness,  his  best  interest,  his  highest  wisdom, 
his  widest  liberty,  and  his  most  enduring  reality:  the 
service  of  the  Creator  is,  furthermore,  the  one  solitary 
thing  which  answers  truly  to  any  of  the  above  names: 
and  lastly,  from  its  neglect,  the  very  oppositcs  of  dig- 
nity, happiness,  interest,  wisdom,  liberty,  and  reality, 
follow  to  the  creature,  and  the  end  of  all  is  everlasting 
perdition.     We  are  almost  ashamed  to  write  down  such 
eimple  things,  and  to  take  up  your  time  with  reading  a 
string  of  propositions  which  no  one  in  his  senses  would 
dream  of  controverting,     It  is  like  printing  the  merest 
rudiments  of  Christian  doctrine  under  a  more  preten- 
tious title  than  that  of  a  catechism.   Yet,  when  we  look 
at  our  past  lives,  perhaps  our  present  lives,  in  the  light 
of  these  elementary  truths,  it  would  seem  as  if  they 
could  never  be  stated  too  often,  and  as  if  there  was  no 
one,  learned  or  simple,  saint  or  sinner,  to  whom  the 
statement  of  them  was  ever  an  unseasonable  admonition 
or  an  unnecessary  repetition.     God  has  established  Hi3 
right  to  our  service  by  so  many  other  titles  than  that  of 
creation,  that  self-love  is  able,  almost  unconsciously,  to 
think  more  of  those  titles,  the  acknowledgment  of  which 
implies  more  faith  and  more  generosity  in  us,  and  to 
dwell  less  on  that  which  is  at  once  the  most  self-evident, 
involves  the  completest  submission,  and  will  not  admit 
of  more  than  one  opinion.     No  one  can  exaggerate  the 
extent  to  which  God  is  ignored  in  His  own  world.     It 
is  a  miserable  fact  which  is  always  a  discovery,  and  is 
always  new,  because  we  see  more  of  it  every  day  of  our 
lives.     To  the  friends  of  God  it  is  a  growing  unhappi* 
ness,  because  as  they  advance  in  holiness  and  know  Him 
better,  it  seems  to  them  less  and  less  possible  not  to 


103  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

love  Him  with  the  most  ardent,  enthusiastic,  and  exclu- 
sive love,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  experience  is  forcing 
upon  them  the  unwelcome  conviction  that  they  know 
not  one-tenth  part  of  the  wickedness  of  bad  men,  or  of 
the  criminal  inadvertence  of  those  who  profess  to  acknow- 
ledge the  sovereignty  of  God.     The  world  has  many 
trades  and  many  tasks  for  its  many  sons;  but  there  is 
one  daily  labour  which  it  seems  to  add  to  all  of  them, 
the  effort  to  put  away  from  its  children  the  remem- 
brance that  they  are  creatures,  in  order  that  they  may 
the   more  undoubtingly  forget  that  they  have  a  Creator. 
Blessed  be  the  goodness  of  God,  for  giving  us  the  grace 
to  remember  Him  ;  for  out  of  that  grace  will  all  others 
come;  and  thrice  blessed  be  His  infinite  compassion  for 
the  further   grace  of  loving  Him,  and  of  yearning  to 
make  others  love  Him  more  ! 

It  follows  from  what  has  been  said  that  there  cannot 
be  much  question  as  to  the  extent  of  our  service  of  God, 
or  the  degree  in  which  we  are  to  serve  Him.  If  He  is 
our  last  end,  then  His  service  is  that  one  thing  needful 
of  which  our  Lord  spoke  in  the  Gospel.  With  all  our 
heart,  with  all  our  mind,  with  all  our  soul,  and  with  all 
our  strength — it  must  be  thus,  and  only  thus,  that  wo 
should  serve  our  Creator  ;  for  any  service  short  of  this, 
or  short  of  a  real  effort  to  make  it  this,  would  be  dis- 
loyalty to  His  infinite  majesty  and  goodness.  But  in 
what  way,  or  in  what  spirit,  are  we  to  serve  God? 
This  question  also  appears  to  be  settled,  without  any 
further  argument  or  appeal,  by  our  own  idea  of  what  it 
is  to  have  a  Creator.  It  is  plain  that  the  kind  of  wor- 
ship which  we  pay  to  Him  must  be  something  of  the 
following  description.  It  must  be  an  easy  service,  as 
well  because  of  His  immense  compassion  as  because  of 
our  unhappy  weakness.    It  would  be  doing  a  dishonour 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  109 

to  Ilis  goodness  to  suppose  He  has  made  the  way  to 
His  favour  difficult,  or  that  lie  docs  not  efficaciously 
desire  to  save  countless,  countless  multitudes  of  His 
fallen  creatures.  It  would  be  an  un  filial  irreverence  to 
our  most  dear  and  loving  Creator  to  imagine  that  His 
service  would  not  be  easy  and  delightful. 

But  it  must  not  only  he  the  easiest  of  services,  it 
must  be  the  noblest  also.  We  must  not  offer  to  God 
except  of  our  best.  It  must  be  the  noblest,  as  for  Him 
who  is  noble  beyond  word  or  thought,  and  it  must  be 
the  noblest  as  ennobling  us  who  serve  Him,  and  making 
us  more  like  Himself.  It  must  be  the  happiest  of  ser- 
vices. For  what  is  God  but  infinite  beatitude  and 
eternal  joy?  His  life  is  joy.  All  that  is  bright  and 
happy  comes  from  Him.  Were  it  not  for  Him,  there 
would  be  no  gladness,  either  in  heaven  or  on  earth. 
There  can  be  nothing  melancholy,  nothing  gloomy, 
nothing  harsh,  nothing  unwilling,  in  our  service  of  such 
a  Father  and  Creator.  Our  worship  must  be  happy  in 
itself,  happy  in  look  and  in  expression,  happy  in  blithe- 
ness  and  in  promptitude  and  in  beautiful  decorum  ;  and 
it  must  also  be  such  a  worship,  as  while  it  gladdens  tho 
tenderness  of  God  and  glorifies  His  paternal  fondness, 
shall  also  fill  cur  souls  with  that  abounding  happiness  in 
Him,  which  is  our  main  strength  in  all  well-doing  and 
in  all  holy  suffering. 

It  must  be  a  service  also  which  calls  out  and  occu- 
pies the  whole  of  man.  There  must  not  be  a  sense  of 
our  bodies,  nor  a  faculty  of  our  minds,  nor  an  affection 
of  our  hearts,  not  a  thing  that  we  can  do,  nor  a  thing 
that  we  can  suffer,  but  this  service  must  be  able  to 
absorb  it  and  transform  it  into  itself.  We  must  not 
only  worship  God  always,  but  the  whole  of  us  must 
worship  God.     Our  very  distractions  must  be  worslup, 


110  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

and  we  must  have  some  land  of  worship  which  wi'ii 
enable  them  so  to  be.  Thus  it  must  be  an  obvious 
service,  one  which  at  the  very  first  sight  shall  strike  a 
creature  as  reasonable  and  fitting;  and  in  order  to  bo 
so,  it  must  be  such  a  service  as  a  creature  would  wish 
to  have  rendered  to  himself.  It  must  have  that  in  it 
which  alone  makes  any  service  graceful  or  acceptable. 
But  as  our  wants  are  many,  our  feelings  manifold,  and 
our  duties  multiplied,  our  service  of  the  Creator  must 
be  one  which  includes  all  possible  services,  expresses 
all  our  numerous  relations  with  Him,  satisfies  all  His 
claims  upon  us,  at  least  in  some  degree,  and  has  power 
to  impetrate  for  us  the  many  and  various  supplies  of  our 
diversified  necessities. 

It  must;  be  a  service  also,  which  in  a  sense  shall  com- 
prehend God,  and  embrace  the  Incomprehensible.  It 
must  honour  all  His  perfections,  and  all  of  them  at 
once,  even  while  it  sees  God,  rather  as  Himself  univer- 
sal perfection,  than  as  having  any  distinct  perfections. 
It  must  not  worship  His  mercy  to  the  detriment  of  His 
justice,  or  His  simplicity  to  the  injury  of  His  beauty  ; 
it  must  not  lose  sight  of  His  jealousy  in  His  liberality, 
nor  lightly  esteem  His  sanctity  because  of  His  facility 
in  panioning.  And  it  must  settle  all  these  difficulties 
in  a  practical  way,  the  wisdom  of  which  will  be  acknow- 
ledged as  soon  as  it  is  stated,  and  which  will  not  per- 
plex our  simple  communion  with  God  by  subtleties  and 
distinctions.  It  must  be  a  service  whose  direct  effect 
must  be  union.  It  must  have  such  a  special  power  over 
the  human  soul,  and  at  the  same  time  so  peculiarly 
prevail  with  God,  as  to  join  God  and  the  soul  together 
in  the  most  mysterious  and  indissoluble  union.  For  the 
creature  tends  to  close  union  with  the  Creator,  and  union 
alone  is  the  perfection  of  all  true  worship.    Finally  this 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  Ill 

service  or  worship,  as  it  is  union,  must  last,  and  out- 
live, and  take  up  into  itself,  and  develop,  and  magnify, 
all  other  graces.  Moreover  it  must  be  something  mora 
than  they  are,  something  1  ides,  which  words  cannot 
tell,  but  which  will  be  an  inconceivable  and  eternal 
gladness,  brightening  in  our  souls  for  evermore. 

Any  service,  either  short  of  this  or  different  from  this, 
would  plainly  be  unsuitable  as  an  offering  from  the 
creature  to  the  Creator.  It  is  implied  in  the  very 
notion  of  creation ;  for  we  cannot  understand  creation 
otherwise  than  as  an  act  of  eternal  love.  Our  own  idea 
of  a  Creator  has  already  settled  the  question  for  us. 
*\Ve  do  not  anticipate  the  least  objection  to  any  of  the 
requirements  specified  above ;  and  numerous  as  they 
are,  and  differing  in  so  many  ways,  there  is  one  spirit, 
one  worship,  one  temper,  one  act,  one  habit,  one  word, 
which  at  once  satisfies  all  of  them  in  the  completest  way 
possible  to  a  finite  creature.  That  one  word  is  love. 
The  creature  cannot  serve  the  Creator  except  with  a 
service  of  love.  Love  is  the  soul  of  worship,  the  foun- 
dation of  reverence,  the  life  of  good  works,  the  remission 
of  sins,  the  increase  of  holiness,  and  the  security  of  final 
perseverance.  Love  meets  the  first  of  our  requirements; 
for  of  all  services  it  is  the  easiest.  Its  facility  has 
passed  into  a  proverb.  It  is  also  the  noblest  and  the 
happiest  of  services,  the  noblest  because  it  is  the  least 
mercenary,  the  happiest  because  it  is  the  most  voluntary. 
It  is  the  only  one  which  calls  out  and  occupies  the 
whole  man;  and  it  is  naturally  a  creature's  obvious 
service  ;  for  it  is  the  only  service  which  he  would  care 
to  have  rendered  to  himself.  Love  alone  fulfils  all  the 
commandments  at  once,  and  is  the  perfection  of  all  our 
duties.  It  is  the  only  one  which  does  not  deny,  or  at 
least  pretermit,  something  ia  God.    Fear,  when  exclu- 


312  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

sive,  denies  mercy,  and  familiarity  weakens  reverence, 
when  the  familiarity  is  not  profoundly  based  on  love; 
whereas  love  settles  the  equalities  and  rights  of  all  the 
a  ttributes  of  God,  enthrones  them  all,  adores  them  all, 
and  is  nourished  in  exceeding  gladness  by  them  all. 
Love  also,  and  alone,  accomplishes  union ;  and  while 
faith  dawns  into  sight,  and  hope  ends  in  everlasting 
contentment,  love  alone  abides,  as  we  said  before,  out- 
living, taking  up  into  itself,  developing,  and  magnifying 
all  other  graces,  consummating  at  least  that  mystical 
oneness  with  God  which  the  Saints  have  named  Divine 
Espousals. 

Once  more  you  must  remember  that  we  are  not 
speaking  of  perfection,  nor  describing  the  heroism  of  the 
saints.  We  are  saying  nothing  of  voluntary  austerities, 
nor  of  the  love  of  suffering,  nor  of  the  thirst  for  humilia- 
tions, nor  of  martyrdoms  of  charity,  nor  of  silence  under 
unjust  accusations,  nor  of  a  positive  distaste  for  worldly 
things,  nor  of  an  impatience  to  be  dissolved  and  be  with 
Christ,  nor  of  the  hidden  life,  nor  of  the  surrender  of 
our  own  will  by  vows,  nor  of  mortification  of  the  judg- 
ment, nor  of  holy  virginity,  nor  of  evangelical  poverty, 
nor  of  the  supernatural  mysteries  of  the  interior  life, 
of  the  arduous  and  perilous  paths  of  mystical  contem- 
plation. We  are  speaking  only  of  what  God  has  a 
right  to,  simply  because  He  has  created  us,  of  what  we 
cannot  with  decency  refuse,  of  what  common  sense  alone 
convinces  us,  and  of  what  we  must  be  practical  atheists 
if  we  venture  to  withhold.  And  yet  it  amounts  to  our 
making  the  service  of  God  our  sole  end,  dignity,  happi- 
ness, wisdom,  interest,  liberty  and  reality  ;  and  to  our 
devoting  ourselves  to  it  out  of  love  as  the  most  obvious 
as  well  as  the  only  sufficient  worship  of  our  Creator. 
Simple  as  the  statement  seems,  and  unanswerable  as  it 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  113 

is  in  all  its  details,  it  comes  to  far  more  than  men  will 
ordinarily  allow;  and  yet  if  it  proves  itself  as  soon  as 
it  is  propounded,  what  can  we  conclude  except  that  men 
will  not  think  of  God,  and  that  they  have  so  long  neg- 
lected to  think  of  Him,  that  they  never  for  one  moment 
suspect  either  how  little  they  know  of  Him  or  how 
utterly  they  neglect  Him?     Alas!  who  has  not  seen 
many  men  and  many  women,  gliding  quietly  down  the 
waters  of  life,  full  of  noble  sentiments  and  generous  im- 
pulses, kind  and  self-forgetting,  brave  and  chivalrous, 
without  one  flaw  of  meanness  in  their  character,  ardent, 
delicate,  faithful,  forgiving,  and  considerate,  and  yet — 
almost  without  God  in  the  world ;  though  we  are  sure 
they  would  be  just  the  persons  to  adorn  His  faith  and 
name,  if  only  it  occurred  to  them  to  advert  to  either  of 
the  two  sides  of  that  childish  truth,  that  we  are  crea- 
tures, and  that  we  have  a  Creator  ? 

In  concluding  this  chapter,  even  at  the  peril  of  re- 
peating, we  must  once  more  allude  to  the  evils  which 
follow  from  not  realizing  what  it  is  to  have  a  Creator. 
In  the  first  place  it  introduces  wrong  notions  into  prac- 
tical religion.  It  gives  an  erroneous  view  of  the  mutual 
relations  between  God  and  ourselves,  and  substitutes 
lower  motives,  where  higher  ones  would  be  not  only 
more  religious,  but  more  easy  also.  It  destroys  the 
paternal  character  of  God,  and  makes  His  sanctity 
obscure  His  tenderness  instead  of  illustrating  and  adorn- 
ing it.  It  leads  us  to  look  upon  God  as  an  independent 
power  who  has,  as  it  were,  come  down  upon  us  from 
without,  and  stands  aloof  from  us,  even  while  He  governs 
us,  and  not  as  if  we  were  from  Him,  and  through  Him, 
and  in  Him.  It  is  as  if  Ho  had  conquered  us  rather 
than  created  us.  Hence  our  submission  is  the  submis- 
sion of  the  conquered.  We  do  not  dispute  His  right  cf 
8  t 


114  WHAT  IT'IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

conquest,  for  our  subjection  is  evidently  complete,  but 
we  make  the  best  terms  we  can  with  Him,  and  hold 
Him  to  the  conditions  on  which  we  surrendered.  It  is 
as  if  His  service  were  simply  a  sacrifice  of  ourselves  to 
Him,  an  immolation  of  ourselves  to  His  surpassing  glory, 
and  as  if  His  interests  were  not  really  the  same  as  ours, 
His  end,  which  is  Himself,  the  same  as  ours,  and  our 
happiness  wrapped  up  in  His  beatitude.  It  would  be 
less  unreasonable  to  look  upon  ourselves,  if  we  could,  as 
external  to  ourselves,  as  a  foreign  power  with  whom  we 
were  on  a  kind  of  armed  neutrality,  as  an  adverse  in- 
terest to  be  suspected  and  watched,  than  to  look  upon 
God,  as  we  must  inevitably  look  upon  Him,  if  we  put 
out  of  view  that  He  created  us  out  of  nothing.  Dryness, 
weariness,  reluctance,  instability,  and  scantiness,  in 
practical  religion,  are  in  a  great  measure  the  results  of 
this  forgetfulness  that  we  have  a  Creator. 

Then  again  has  real  piety  a  greater  or  a  deadlier 
enemy  than  the  popular  ideas  of  enthusiasm?  If  a  per- 
son loses  his  taste  for  worldly  amusements  and  blame- 
less dissipations,  if  he  prefers  the  church  to  the  theatre, 
early  mass  to  lying  in  bed,  almsgiving  to  fine  dress, 
spiritual  books  to  novels,  visiting  the  poor  to  driving  in 
the  park,  prayer  to  parties,  he  is  forthwith  set  down 
as  an  enthusiast;  and  though  people  do  not  exactly 
know  what  enthusiasm  is,  yet  they  know  that  it  is 
something  inconceivably  bad ;  for  it  is  something  young 
people  should  be  especially  warned  against,  and  above 
all  pious  people,  as  most  needing  such  admonition. 
The  mere  word  enthusiasm  is  a  power  in  itself;  for  it 
accuses,  tries,  condemns,  and  punishes  a  man  all  at  once. 
Nothing  can  be  more  complete.  Yet,  in  the  first  place, 
dear  reader,  look  over  your  numerous  acquaintance; 
and  tell  us, — whatever  may  be  your  notion  of  religious 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  IIAVE  A  CREATOR.  115 

enthusiasm,  did  you  ever  know  any  one  injured  by  it? 
You  have  heard  that  it  makes  people  mad:  did  you 
ever  have  one  of  your  own  friends  driven  mad  by  it  ? 
And  while  you  condemned  their  enthusiasm,  did  you 
ever  yourself  get  quite  rid  of  a  feeling  that,  however 
unfit  it  was  for  life,  it  would  be  far  from  an  undesirable 
state  to  die  in?  In  the  next  place,  what  is  enthusiasm? 
Dr.  Johnson  tells  us  that  it  is  a  H  vain  belief  of  private 
revelations  :''  did  any  of  your  devout  friends  dream  that 
they  had  had  private  revelations  ?  It  is  "  a  heat  of 
imagination :"  did  not  your  friends  seem  to  grow  cold 
raiher  than  hot?  Were  they  not  often  tempted  to  go 
your  way  because  it  was  pleasanter?  Did  they  not 
find  it  hard  to  persevere  in  spiritual  practices,  and  did 
they  not  embrace  them,  not  at  all  from  any  imagination 
tot  or  cold,  but  simply  because  they  thought  it  right, 
and  because  grace  had  begun  to  change  their  tastes  ? 
It  is  *•  an  exaltation  of  ideas:"  now  were  not  the  ideas 
of  your  friends,  in  any  true  sense  of  the  word,  rather 
depressed  than  exalted  ?  Were  they  not  more  humble, 
more  submissive,  more  obliging ;  or,  at  least,  whenever 
they  were  not  so,  did  you  not  distinctly  feel  that  they 
were  acting  inconsistently  with  their  religious  pro- 
fession ?  Were  any  of  their  ideas  in  any  sense  exalted, 
even  of  those  which  had  most  to  do  with  their  pious 
practices  ?  Were  not  even  those  ideas  rather  subdued 
than  exalted  I  These  are  Dr.  Johnson's  three  defini- 
tions. They  will  not  suit  you.  Do  you  mean  then  by 
enthusiasm,  doiDg  too  much  for  God  ?  You  would  not 
like  to  say  so.  Do  you  mean  doing  it  in  the  wrong 
Way?  But  is  daily  mass  wrong,  i$  almsgiving 
wrong,  are  spiritual  books  wrong,  i3  visiting  the  poor 
wrong,  is  prayer  wrong  ?  Or  will  you  say  it  is  doing 
them  instead  of  other  thiDgs,  which  are  not  sinful? 


116  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

Weill  but  is  not  this  tyranny?    A  man  might  answer, 
If  an  opera  would  be  to  me  the  most  tiresome  of  pen- 
ances, or  a  ball  the  most  unendurable  of  wearinesses, 
why  am  I  obliged  to  go?     Or  if  I  simply  prefer  prayer 
to  the  opera,  or  spiritual  reading  to  the  ball,  why  am 
I  to  have  less  liberty  in  gratifying  my  tastes  than  you 
in  gratifying  yours?    Do  you  mean  that   God  spoils 
everything  He  touches,  and  is  a  mar-pleasure  wherever 
He  interferes  ?    The  truth  is  that  by  enthusiasm  men 
mean  the  being  more  religious  than  themselves.     And 
this  is  an  unpardonable  offence ;  for  they  are  the  stand- 
ards of  what  is  moderate,  sober,  rational,  and  reflective. 
Enthusiasm,  in  common  parlance,  has  no  other  meaning. 
Whoever  uses  the  word  is  simply  making  public  confes- 
sion of  his  own  tepidity.      Thus  the  whole  popular 
standard  of  practical  religion  is  wrong  and  unfair,  be- 
cause it  is  fixed  with  reference  to  a  false  calculation ; 
and  it  is  this  which  leads  to  the  popular  fallacy  about 
enthusiasm.      If  men  realized  more  truly  and  more 
habitually  what  it  is  to  have  a  Creator,  and  how  much 
follows  from  that  elementary  truth  as  to  the  nature  and 
amount  of  the  service  we  owe  Him,  there  can  be  no- 
doubt  they  would  assent  to  a  far  higher  standard  on  the 
unsuspicious  evidence  of  natural  reason  and  common 
sense,   than  they  will  now  concede  to  the  arguments 
of  spiritual  books  which  are  founded  on  higher  motives, 
and  appeal  to  a  greater  variety  of  considerations.     The 
fact  is  that  we  only  appreciate  God's  goodness,  in  pro- 
portion as  by  His  grace  we  become  good  ourselves ;  and 
His  goodness  is  so  great  and  high  and  deep  and  broad, 
that  it  makes  little  impression  upon  the  dulness  of  our 
spiritual  sense,  until  it  is  quickened  and  sharpened  with 
heavenly  light.    And  thus,  when  we  are  low  in  grace, 
and  unpractised  in  devotion,  the  simple  truth  that  God 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  117 

is  our  Creator,  and  that  a  Creator  necessarily  implies 
what  nyc  have  seen  it  implies,  will  come  home  to  us  with 
greater  force,  and  make  a  more  decided  impression, 
than  the  complex  consideration  of  the  further  and  higher 
mercies  which  God  has  so  multiplied  upon  us  that  they 
almost  seem  to  hide  one  another's  brightness.  No  man 
would  accuse  his  neighbour  of  enthusiasm,  which  is  a  prac- 
tical endeavour  to  lower  the  standard  of  his  religious  prac- 
tice, if  he  saw  that  his  practice  already  fell  short  of  what 
phin  common  sense  and  decency  require  from  a  creature. 
But  it  is  remarkable  that  it  is  not  only  the  great 
multitude  of  men  who  would  find  their  account,  and 
in  truth  a  thorough  reform,  in  dwelling  more  habitually 
on  what  it  is  to  be  a  creature  and  what  it  is  to  have  a 
Creator.  This  is  one  of  the  points  in  which  the  ex- 
tremes of  holiness  meet,  its  rawest  beginnings  with  its 
highest  perfection.  The  tendency  of  the  spiritual  life, 
especially  in  its  more  advanced  stages,  is  to  simplify  the 
operations  of  the  soul.  The  variety  of  considerations, 
the  crowd  of  reasons,  the  number  of  heightening  circum- 

'  DO 

stances,  the  reduplicated  motives,  which  characterize 
the  arduous  work  of  meditation,  give  place  to  a  more 
austere  unity,  and  a  more  simple  method,  and  a  more 
fixed  sentiment  in  the  loftier  practice  of  divine  contem- 
plation. The  multiplicity  of  lights,  which  filled  us  with 
a  very  trouble  of  sweetness  at  the  first,  grow  pale  before 
the  one  fixed  ray  of  heavenly  light  which  beams  upon 
us  as  we  approach  the  goal.  Hence  we  find  that  one 
common-place  truth,  which  would  seem  tame  and  trivia] 
in  our  meditations,  is  enough  to  a  saint  for  long  hours 
of  extatic  contemplation.  This  is  the  reason  why  we  are 
so  often  surprised  at  the  apparently  exaggerated  esteem 
in  which  the  saints  have  held  certain  spiritual  treatises, 
that  we  in  our  lower  and  duller  state  have  condemned 


118  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

as  spiritless,  or  prosy,  or  uninteresting.  The  book  is 
but  one  half  the  work.  The  interior  spirit  of  the  reader 
is  the  other  and  the  better  half.  And  it  is  this  last  in 
which  we  fail.  Thus  the  very  truths  which  we  are  con- 
sidering in  this  treatise,  what  it  is  to  be  a  creature  and 
what  it  is  to  have  a  Creator,  have  no  varied  interest  or 
exciting  novelty,  and  yet  it  is  just  to  these  two  elemen- 
tary truths  of  Christian  doctrine  that  the  highest  con- 
templatives  return,  with  all  the  power  of  lifelong  habits, 
and  of  intense  prayer,  with  their  intelligence  purified 
by  austerities  which  make  us  tremble,  and  with  the 
seven  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  those  mighty  engines  of 
spiritual  enterprise.  Look  at  St.  Francis  Borgia,  the 
saint  of  humility.  It  seems  a  less  wonderful  thing  to 
raise  the  dead,  than  to  spend,  as  he  did,  three  hours 
daily  in  the  absorbing  and  undistracted  contemplation 
of  his  own  nothingness.  Is  it  easy  to  conceive  how  the 
three  times  sixty  minutes  were  spent  in  the  embrace 
of  this  single  and  so  homely  a  truth  ?  One  ascetical 
author  tells  us  that  it  was  when  St.  Francis  of  Assisi 
was  at  the  very  culminating  point  of  his  contemplation 
that  he  cried  out,  "  Who  art  Thou,  Lord  !  and  who  am 
I?  Thou  art  an  abyss  of  essence,  truth  and  glory,  and 
I  am  an  abjss  of  nothingness,  vanity  and  miseries  !" 
Father  Le  Blanc  tells  us  that  chosen  souls  make  much 
of  this  truth,  and  lay  great  stress  on  the  meditation  of 
it.  The  B.  Angela  of  Foligno  cried  out  in  a  loud  voice, 
"  O  unknown  Nothingness  !  O  unknown  Nothingness! 
I  tell  you  with  an  entire  certainty  that  the  soul  can 
have  no  better  science  than  that  of  its  own  nothing- 
ness." Our  Lord  has  Himself  revealed  His  compla- 
cency in  this  practice  of  the  saints.  He  said  to  St. 
Catherine  of  Siena,  '.'  Knowest  thou,  My  daughter,  who 
J  am  and  who  thou  art?     Thou  wilt  attain  blessed- 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  119 

Bess  by  this  knowledge.  I  am  that  I  am,  and  thou  art 
that  which  is  not."  St.  Gertrude  thought  that  of  all 
God's  miracles,  the  greatest  was  the  fact  that  the  earth 
continued  to  endure  such  undeserving  nothingness  a3 

hers. 

The   common   misapprehensions,   which   exist   with 
regard  to  the  doctrines  of  religious  vocation,  religious 
orders,   and  generally  what  is  called  priestcraft,  may 
be  enumerated  also  among  the  mischiefs  resulting  from 
the  popular  oblivion  of  what  it  is  to  have  a  Creator. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  fearfulness  of 
hindering  a  true  vocation,  especially  when  we  consider 
how  often,  not  the  perfection  only,  but  the  actual  salva- 
tion of  the  soul  is  compromised  by  its  disobedience  to 
the  call.     The  doctrine  of  vocation  rests  upon  the  fact 
that  we  are  creatures.     God  has  an  absolute  right  to  us. 
It  is  our  business  to  be  wrhere  He  wants  us,  and  occupied 
in  the  work  He  specifies,  and  we  have  no  right  to  be 
anywhere  else,  or  otherwise  engaged.     He  has  ways  of 
making  this  special  will  and  purpose  known  to  us,  which 
are  examined  and  approved  by  His  church.     Now  rela- 
tives and  others  often  talk  and  act  as  if  the  question 
were  to  be  decided  by  their  narrow  views  and  individual 
tastes.     They  say  too  many  people  are  going  into  con- 
vents in  these  days,  and  that  domestic  circles  are  being 
drained  of  all  their  piety.     There  are  not  enough  secular 
priests;   therefore  for  the  present   we   must   have  no 
more  monks.     Active  orders  are  suited  to  the  genius 
of  the  day ;  therefore  contemplative  vocations  are  to  be 
discouraged.     They  not  only  overlook  the  question  of 
the  person's  own  salvation,  but  they  forget   that  the 
whole  matter  turns  on  a  fact,  Has  God,  or  has  He  not* 
called  that  particular  person  to  that  particular  order? 
If  He  has  not,  then  we  must  come  to  that  negative 


120  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

decision  in  the  way  the  church  indicates.  If  He  has, 
then  there  is  no  more  to  be  said.  In  either  case,  all 
those  views  ah  out  orders,  and  the  wants  of  the  present 
day,  are  very  dangerously  beside  the  purpose.  They 
may  at  last  come  to  this ;  nay,  they  often  have  come  to 
this: — God  wants  your  brother  or  your  sister  in  one 
ilefinite  place :  you  want  them  in  another ;  and,  taking 
advantage  of  the  natural  indecision  of  their  free  will, 
you  have  got  your  way,  and  beaten  God.  A  bitter 
victory !  If  forcing  vocations  is  wanton  work,  and  if 
touting  for  vocations  is  the  malediction  of  religious 
orders,  there  is  hardly  any  account  a  man  had  not  better 
take  to  his  Creator's  judgment-seat,  than  one  which  is 
laden  with  the  spoiling  or  the  thwarting  of  a  vocation. 
All  this  comes  from  not  recognizing  the  Creator's  abso- 
lute right  to  His  creature,  and  from  not  clearly  perceiv- 
ing that  His  will  is  the  one  only  thing  to  be  considered. 
The  same  may  be  observed  of  the  popular  notions  of 
priestcraft.  It  is  enough  to  say  of  them,  that  they  are 
never  found  apart  from  a  dislike  of  the  supernatural 
altogether,  and  an  uneasiness  and  impatience  of  any 
interference  on  the  part  of  God,  or  of  any  reference 
being  made  to  Him. 

To  the  same  forgetfulness  of  what  it  is  to  have  a 
Creator  may  be  attributed  the  wrong  principles  now  so 
much  in  vogue,  by  which  we  regulate  our  intercourse 
with  misbelievers.  We  look  at  them  rather  than  at 
God,  at  their  side  of  the  question  rather  than  His;  or 
it  would  be  more  true  to  say  that  we  in  reality  do  our 
best  to  betray  their  interests,  because  we  do  not  look 
first  at  His.  Those,  who  realize  what  it  is  to  be  a 
creature  and  what  it  is  to  have  a  Creator,  will  never 
make  light  of  any  disturbance  or  interruption  in  the 
relations  between  the  Creator  and  the  creature.    Every 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOE.  121 

fraction  of  divine  truth  is  worth  more  than  all  the  world 
besides,  and  every  rightful  exercise  of  spiritual  juris- 
diction is  of  nobler  and  more  lasting  import  than  all  the 
physical  sciences  will  be  when  they  have  pushed  their 
discoveries  to  the  uttermost  limits  of  their  material 
empire.  The  spurious  charity  of  modern  times  has 
stolen  more  converts  from  the  church  than  any  other 
cause.  While  it  has  deadened  the  zeal  of  the  mis- 
sionary, it  has  fortified  the  misbeliever  in  his  darkness 
and  untruth,  and  stunted  or  retarded  in  the  convert  that 
lively  appreciation  of  the  value  of  the  gift  of  faith,  upon 
which  it  would  appear  that  his  spiritual  advancement 
exclusively  depends. 

The  ancient  fathers  of  the  Church  seemed  to  have 
looked  in  different  ways  at  the  two  bodies  of  men  which 
then  lay  outside  the  fold,  the  heathen  and  the  heretics. 
They  regarded  the  heathen,  with  horror  indeed,  yet  still 
rather  with  compassion  than  dislike.  They  contem- 
plated them  as  their  own  future  conquest,  the  raw 
material  out  of  wLich  by  the  preaching  of  the  gospel 
they  were  to  build  up  an  empire  for  their  Lord.  They 
were  to  them  monsters  of  ignorance  rather  than  mon- 
sters of  perversity;  and  with  kindliness  and  yearning, 
they  found  no  difficulty  in  detesting  the  falsehood  while 
they  clung  tenderly  to  those  who  were  astray.  But 
they  looked  on  heretics  in  a  very  different  way.  It  was 
less  easy  to  separate  their  errors  from  themselves. 
They  had  received  the  truth,  and  had  corrupted  it,  and 
a  direct,  schismatical,  and  personal  hostility  to  the 
church  actuated  them.  They  had  mixed  the  doctrine 
of  devils  with  the  pure  Gospel.  They  had  been  guilty 
of  personal  treason  to  Jesus.  As  Judas  was  more 
odious  than  Pilate,  so  were  heretics  more  hateful  than 
the   heathen.    Hence,   amidst   all  their  charity   and 


122  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

patience  and  sweetness,  the  elder  Christians  looted  on 
hereby  with  a  sternness  of  spirit  which  did  not  actuate 
them  towards  the  heathen.  St.  John  would  not  enter 
the  building  where  Cerinthus  was:  we  find  no  such 
thing  recorded  of  him  in  his  intercourse  with  those  who 
worshipped  Diana  of  the  Ephesians.  We  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  recognizing  the  difference  between  the  two 
cases,  and  in  understanding  the  grave  charity  of  the 
apostle  of  love.  The  whole  truth,  even  when  preached 
ungently  and  with  frowardness,  is  a  more  converting 
thing  than  half  the  truth  preached  winningly,  or  an 
error  condescended  to  out  of  the  anxiety  of  mistaken 
love. 

We  trust  it  will  not  seem  a  paradox  to  say,  that  the 
great  mass  and  multitude  of  the  English  people  are  to 
be  regarded  rather  as  heathen  than  as  heretics,  and  are 
therefore  entitled  to  the  more  kindly  view  which  the 
ancient  fathers  took  of  those  without  the  fold.  So  far 
they  are  in  better  case  than  the  heathen,  because  they 
possess,  at  the  least  implicitly,  a  belief  in  so  many  of 
the  principal  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith.  The 
present  generation,  we  speak  of  them  in  the  mass,  have 
no  determinate  choice  of  error  rather  than  truth,  no 
self-will,  no  obstinate,  perverse  adherence  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  a  sect.  They  have  no  personal  hostility  to  the 
church  ;  and  the  national  war-cry  of  No  Popery  is  no 
real  proof  to  the  contrary.  Their  religious  errors  are 
the  traditions  of  their  forefathers,  and  they  know  no 
others.  They  know  nothing  of  the  catholic  church. 
Their  ideal  church  is  very  like  it,  though  it  falls  below 
the  reality.  But  the  actual  church  they  have  been 
taught  to  believe  is  the  enemy  of  God,  and  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  souls  of  men.  They  have  no  more  notion  that 
euch  a  state  of  things  exists  on  the  surface  of  the  earth 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR.  123 

agwe  know  the  inside  of  the  catholic  church  to  be,  than 
they  know  how  the  angels  spend  their  time,  or  what 
the  glory  of  the  third  heaven  is  like.  They  look  on  up, 
as  an  old  heathen  did,  who  believed  that  Christians  mot 
early  in  the  morning  to  slay  infants  and  to  eat  their 
flesh  ;  and  of  such  sort  is  their  honest  conviction. 
Furthermore  the  consequences  of  their  misbelief  has 
been  a  total  misconception  of  God,  a  misconception 
really  rather  than  an  ignoring  of  Him.  They  have  the 
word  God,  and  an  idea  attached  to  the  word,  and  a 
sense  which  goes  along  with  the  idea;  but,  if  we  may 
so  speak,  He  is  as  much  a  different  God  from  ours,  as 
the  old  Christian's  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  wa3 
from  the  Jupiter  Tonans  of  the  poor  heathen,  or  the 
Primal  Cause  of  the  proud  philosopher.  Hence,  while 
we  can  neither  compromise  nor  conceal  the  truth,  we 
may  look  with  the  kindest  compassion  on  our  fellow- 
countrymen,  as  our  future  conquest,  as  the  raw  materials 
for  an  ardent  host  of  Christians,  as  poor  wanderers  in 
darkness  who  want  to  be  taught  rather  than  controverted, 
and  who  ahove  all  things  desire  to  have  their  sins  for- 
given, if  they  only  knew  the  way.  But  one  word,  one 
look,  which  goes  to  show  that  being  in  the  Church  and 
being  out  of  the  Church  are  not  as  fearfully  far  asunder 
as  light  from  darkness,  as  Christ  from  Belial,  will  rob 
God  of  more  souls  than  a  priest's  life  of  preaching  or  a 
saint's  life  of  prayer  has  won.  It  is  an  old  proverb  that 
the  worst  of  all  corruptions  and  counterfeits  is  the  cor- 
ruption and  counterfeit  of  that  which  is  most  excellent. 
If  charity  then,  both  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  both  for 
time  and  for  eternity,  is  the  most  excellent  of  gifts,  how 
6ad  must  be  the  desolation,  how  wide  the  ruin,  how 
incurable  the  wound,  of  spurious  charity,  which  satisfies 


121  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

its  own  worthless  good-nature  at  the  expense  of  God's 
truth  and  its  neighbour's  soul  ? 

By  far  the  greater  number  of  objections  which  are 
urged  against  the  catholic  doctrines  have  their  root  in 
this  oblivion  of  the  respective  positions  of  creature  and 
Creator.  And  this  is  equally  true  of  difficulties  which 
sometimes  haunt  and  harass  catholics  themselves,  and  of 
difficulties  which  seem  to  prevent  others  from  receiving 
the  teaching  of  the  church  at  all.  If  we  remove  from 
the  objections  urged  against  the  Incarnation,  or  against 
the  Blessed  Sacrament,  or  against  the  doctrine  of  grace, 
all  those  which  are  founded  in  an  inadequate  view  of 
God,  or  are  derogatory  to  His  perfections  as  reason 
represents  them,  or  to  His  rights  as  implied  in  the  very 
fact  of  His  being  our  Creator,  very  little  indeed  will  be 
left  to  answer.  Neither  would  it  be  difficult  to  show 
that  most  of  the  misconceptions  about  catholic  devotions 
and  practices  have  their  rise  from  the  same  copious 
fountain.  All  worldliness  comes  from  it  Who  would 
be  worldly  if  he  always  remembered  the  world  was 
God's  world,  not  his?  And  as  to  sin,  it  must  of  neces- 
sity be  either  a  forgetfulness  of  what  it  is  to  have  a 
Creator  or  a  revolt  against  Him. 

But — wre  speak  now  to  more  loving  souls, — there  is 
another  mischief  which  comes  from  the  same  error. 
In  all  ages  of  the  world  it  has  been  a  temptation 
to  £,ood  and  thoughtful  men,  and  the  speculations  of 
modern  philosophy  have  perhaps  now  increased  the 
nun.ber,  to  take  inadequate  views  of  God's  love. 
Nothing  is  more  fatal  to  the  soul,  nor  more  dis- 
honourable to  God.  The  world,  with  the  sun  extin- 
guished, and  the  hideous  black  moon  whirling  round 
our  benighted  planet,  is  but  a  feeble  picture  of  what 
life  becomes  to  a  susceptible  conscience  which  puts 


WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HATE  A  CREATOR.  125 

G oil's  love  of  man  too  low.  Take  what  views  wo 
will  of  grace,  it  must  come  to  this,  that  the  immen- 
sity of  God's  love  is  cur  only  security.*  Because 
He  is  our  Creator,  He  must  love  us;  His  love  must 
be  immense;  He  must  compassionately  desire  the  sal- 
vation of  every  one  of  His  rational  creatures;  He  must 
grudge  every  single  soul  that  maliciously  eludes  the 
embrace  of  His  merciful  longing,  and  escapes  from  Him 
into  outer  darkness;  He  must  do  all  but  offer  violence 
to  our  free  will  in  order  to  save  us;  His  own  glory 
must,  because  of  His  magnificence,  be  in  the  multitude 
who  are  saved,  and,  because  of  His  liberality,  it  must 
also  be  in  the  completeness  of  their  salvation.f  Nay, 
tm  our  view  as  Scotists,  He  was  incarnate  because  He 
was  our  Creator,  and  He  is  with  us  in  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  because  He  is  our  Creator.  Even  if  we 
take  the  Thomist  view  that  the  Incarnation  and  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  were  a  second  love,  and  because  of 
6in  that  second  love  came  out  of  the  first  love  where- 
with He  created  us  out  of  nothing.  True  it  is,  that  we 
have  no  name  for  the  feeling  with  which  one  must 
regard  a  being  whom  we  have  called  out  of  nothing; 
we  may  call  it  paternal  love,  or  by  the  name  of  any 
other  angelic  or  human  love;  and  yet  we  know  that  it 
must  be  a  feeling  far  transcending,  in  height,  and  depth, 
and  comprehensiveness,  in  kind,  endurance,  and  degree, 
all  loving  ties  which  we  can  conceive.  Surely  when 
reason  tells  us  all  was  meant  in  love,  and  that  He  who 
meant  that  love  was  God,  we  may  well  trust  Him  for 

•  Dieu  aime  autant  chaque  hornme  que  tout  le  genre  humain.  Le  poids  et 
le  nombre  ne  rent  rien  &  ses  yeux.  Eterne),  infinl,  il  n'a  que  des  amoura 
kn  menses.— Joubert,  i.  103. 

t  Sicut  enim  gloria  prlncipis  saecularis  fiicitur  consistere  potisMmum  in 
gplendore  et  multitudine  aulicorurn,  ita  externa  gloria  Dei  objectiva  a  couslstil 
foliuimum  in  spiendore  et  multituiine  aulicorurn  ceelestium  — Lwsius. 


126  WHAT  IT  IS  TO  HAVE  A  CREATOR. 

details  which  we  cannot  understand,  or  for  apparent 
contradictions  which  should  not  make  a  son's  heart  fail 
or  his  head  doubt.  Oh  uncertain  and  distrustful  soul ! 
God  be  with  you  in  those  not  disloyal  misgivings,  which 
ailment  of  body  or  turn  of  mind  seem  to  make  in  your 
case  inevitable!  The  mystery  of  Creation  is  the  fountain) 
of  your  pains.  As  it  has  been  your  poison,  so  take  it  as 
your  remedy.  Meditate  long,  meditate  humbly,  on 
what  it  is  to  have  a  Creator,  and  comfort  will  come  at 
last.  If  broad  daylight  should  never  be  yours  on  this 
side  the  grave,  He  will  hold  your  feet  in  the  twilight 
that  they  shall  not  stumble,  and  at  last  with  all  the 
more  love,  and  all  the  more  speed  as  well,  He  will 
fold  you  to  His  bosom  who  is  Himself  the  light  eternal. 


BOOK  IL 
THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  CREATIVE  LOVE. 


THE  CREATOR  AND  THE  CREATURE 


BOOK  II. 

THE  DIFFICULTIES  OF  CREATIVE  LOVE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM,  . 

Quid  ergo  tibi  accessit  ad  bonum  quod  tu  tibi  es,  etiamsi  ista,  vel  om» 
Dino  nulla  essent,  vel  informia  remanerent,  quae  non.  ex  indigentia  feci&tl, 
sed  plenitudine  bouitatis  tua  ?— St.  Auguttin, 

A  child's  first  sight  of  the  ocean  is  an  era  in  his 
life.  It  19  a  new  world  without  him,  and  it  awakens  a 
new  world  within  him.  There  is  no  other  novelty  to  bo 
compared  with  it,  and  after-life  will  bring  nothing  at  all 
like  it.  A  rapid  multitude  of  questions  rush  upon  the 
mind  ;  yet  the  child  is  silent,  as  if  he  needed  not  an 
answer  to  any  of  them.  They  are  beyond  answering  ; 
and  he  feels  that  the  sight  itself  satisfies  him  better 
than  any  answer.  Those  great  bright  outspread  waters ! 
the  idea  of  God  is  the  only  echo  to  them  in  his  mind: 
and  now  henceforth  he  is  a  different  child  because  he 
has  seen  the  sea. 

So  is  it  with  us  when  we  sit  by  the  ocean  of  creative 
love.  Questions  throng  upon  us;  problems  start  up 
on  all  sides;  mysteries  intersect  each  other.  Yet  so 
long  as  we  are  children,  are  childlike  in  heart  and 
spirit,  the  questions  are  not  difficulties.    Either  they 


13Q  WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM. 

answer  themselves,  or  they  do  not  need  an  answer,  like 
questions  which  are  exclamations  only,  or  we  would 
rather  not  have  an  answer,  lest  peradventure  some  high 
thing  should  be  lowered  or  some  holy  thing  be  made 
common.  To  gaze — to  gaze  is  all  we  desire.  The  fact, 
that  so  much  is  mystery  to  us,  is  no  trouble.  It  is 
love.  That  is  enough.  We  trust  it.  We  would  almost 
rather  it  was  not  made  plainer.  It  might  be  darker  if 
it  were.  Whereas  now,  though  it  is  indistinct,  it  is 
tranquillizing  also,  like  the  beauty  of  a  summer  night. 
We  have  thoughts  which  cannot  be  put  into  words,  but 
it  seems  to  us  as  if  they  more  than  answered  all  diffi- 
culties. How  the  broad  waters  flow  and  shine,  and 
now  the  many-headed  waves  leap  up  to  the  sun  and 
sparkle,  and  then  sink  down  into  the  depths  again,  ycfc 
not  to  rest ;  and  placid  as  the  azure  expanse  appears, 
how  evermore  it  thunders  on  the  hard  white  sand,  and 
fringes  the  coast  with  a^  bewitching  silver  mist !  Why 
should  we  ever  stir  from  where  we  are?  To  look  on 
the  sea  seems  better  than  to  learn  the  science  of  its 
storms,  the  grandeur  of  its  steadfastness,  or  the  many 
moods  of  its  beautiful  mutabilities.  The  heathen  called 
the  sea-spirit  father.  There  was  much  in  the  thought 
But  when  we  cease  to  be  children  and  to  be  childlike, 
there  is  no  more  this  simple  enjoyment.  We  ask 
questions,  not  because  we  doubt,  but  because  when  love 
is  not  all  in  all  to  us,  we  must  have  knowledge  or  we 
chafe  and  pine.  Then  a  cloud  conies  between  the  sun 
and  the  sea,  and  that  expanse  of  love,  which  was  an 
undefined  beauty,  a  confused  magnificence,  now  becomes 
black  and  ruffled,  and  breaks  up  into  dark  wheeling 
currents  of  predestination,  or  mountainous  waves  of 
divine  anger  and  judicial  vengeance,  and  the  white  surf 
tells  us  of  many  a  sunken  reef,  where  we  had  seen 


WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HI!!.     131 

nothing  but  a  smooth  and  glossy  azure  plain,  rocking 
gently  to  and  fro,  as  unruffled  as  a  silken  banner. 

We  shall  be  children  once  again,  and  on  the  same 
shore,  and  we  shall  then  never  leave  it  more,  and  we 
shall  Bee  down  into  the  crystal  depths  of  this  creative 
love  and  its  wide  waters  will  be  the  breadtli  and 
measure  of  our  joy,  and  its  glancing  splendour  will  be 
the  light  of  our  eternal  life,  and  its  soft  thunder  will  be 
the  endless,  solemn,  thrilling  music  of  our  beatitude,  O 

happy  we!  but  we  must  be  changed  first  of  all,  and 
perchance  by  fire ! 

But  we  must  not  altogether  cease  to  be  childlike, 
when  we  begin  to  ask  and  answer  questions.  Pride 
can  understand  nothing  about  God.  We  may  question 
then,  but  it  muse  be  in  faith  and  trust  and  love,  content 
with  half  an  answer  when  more  cannot  be  given,  and  to 
be  left  without  answer  at  all,  when  the  heights  of  God's 
goodness  soar  beyond  all  vision  but  that  of  faith,  whose 
prerogative  it  is  in  some  sense  to  equal  and  to  compre- 
hend its  Giver  and  its  Author. 

We  have  endeavoured  so  far  to  get  some  idea  of  what 
it  is  to  be  a  creature  and  of  what  it  is  to  have  a  Creator  ; 
and  it  seems  to  have  taken  many  words  to  explain  those 
simple  tilings.  Our  next  step  must  be  to  ask  and 
answer,  as  well  as  we  can,  five  questions  which  concern 
so  many  wonders  of  Divine  Love  ;  and  we  shall  then 
be  in  a  condition  to  examine  certain  phenomena  in  the 
actual  life  of  the  world,  which  seem  at  variance  with 
our  doctrines.  Thus,  speaking  generally,  the  present; 
treatise  may  be  said  to  have  three  parts.  The  first; 
which  stated  the  case,  and  which  was  concluded  in  the 
last  chapter  :  the  second,  which  is  concerned  with  the 
five  mysteries  of  the  relation  between  the  Creator  and 
the  creature,  and  which  will  occupy  this  and  the  next; 


4 


132  WH7  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM. 

four  chapters :  and  the  third,  which  deals  with  certain 
objections  from  the  state  of  things  in  the  world,  and 
which  will  occupy  the  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  chap- 
ters. After  which  nothing  will  be  left  but  to  close  the 
work  and  leave  it  to  the  blessing  of  God  and  St.  Mat- 
thew, under  whose  invocation  we  have  ventured  to  place 
it,  and  to  the  judgment  and  reflection  of  the  reader. 
The  five  questions  now  to  be  asked  are  as  follows:  1. 
Why  God  should  wish  us  to  love  Him ;  2.  Why  He 
Himself  should  love  us ;  3.  What  sort  of  love  we  have 
for  Him ;  4.  In  what  way  we  repay  His  love  for  us ; 
and  5.  In  what  way  He  repays  our  love  of  Him.  They 
are  all  abysses  of  creative  love,  and  wonders  which 
make  us  wiser  even  when  they  refuse  to  give  up  the 
secrets  which  they  contain. 

We  have  therefore  now  to  enquire  why  it  is  that  God 
wishes  us  to  love  Him.  At  first  sight  it  seems  one  of 
those  facts  which  are  so  very  obvious  that  we  never 
think  of  asking  the  reason  of  them.  But  on  reflection 
this  old  and  common-place  fact  unfolds  so  much  that  is 
strange  and  wonderful,  that  we  almost  unconsciously 
ask  ourselves  if  we  are  quite  clear  of  the  fact,  if  it  is 
really  so  completely  beyond  all  doubt  that  God  wishes 
us  to  love  Him. 

The  difficulties,  which  make  us  begin  almost  to  doubt 
the  fact,  are  some  such  as  these.  That  God  should 
wish  us  to  love  Him  appears  to  imply  some  sort  of  want 
in  Him.  A  desire  is  a  kind  of  confession  of  imperfec- 
tion; and  according  to  the  strength  of  the  desire  so  is 
the  appearance  of  imperfection  and  incompleteness. 
Yet  we  know  that  to  attribute  any  sort  of  want  to  the 
Creator  would  be  simple  blasphemy.  Thou  art  my 
God,  says  the  psalmist,  because  Thou  desirest  none  of 
my  goods.     But  our  love  is  our  greatest  good,  the 


WnY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM.     133 

affections  of  our  heart  are  the  noblest  of  our  possessions, 
and  God,  we  are  told,  earnestly  desires  to  have  them. 
Besides,  if  we  once  grant  this  fact,  we  are  led  into  a 
further  difficulty.  For  immediately  this  fact  assumes 
such  an  importance  that  it  becomes  the  interpretation 
of  all  God's  doings.  Almost  all  we  know  of  Him  has 
at  once  to  be  resolved  into  this  desire.  A  hundred 
other  difficulties  come  up  and  claim  to  be  explained  in 
the  same  way.  We  cannot  conceive  of  God  except  as 
our  Creator,  nor  of  our  Creator  except  as  our  Father, 
for  creation  is  unintelligible  unless  it  is  defined  to  be  a 
Free  Act  of  Eternal  love,  and  then  everything  He  does 
is  the  act  of  a  Father,  and  is  to  be  understood  by  the 
fact  of  our  being  His  sons.  We  see  that  God  cannot, 
Bimply  because  He  is  God,  be  moderately  good  to  us. 
If  we  grant  that  He  cares  for  us  at  all,  then  forthwith 
we  see  that  He  must  care  for  us  so  very  much,  that  the 
vision  of  it  tries  our  faith.  So  God  cannot  desire  our 
love  with  a  weak  and  indifferent  desire.  If  He  desires 
it  at  all,  He  must  desire  it  with  all  the  might  of  His 
ever-bLssed  perfections,  and  it  requires  strong  faith  and 
stronger  love  to  look  at  this  consequence,  and  not  draw 
back  before  its  seeming  audacity. 

If  lie  reveals  Himself  to  us  at  all,  it  is  because  He 
wants  us  to  serve  Him,  and  as  we  saw  in  the  last 
chapter,  He  being  what  He  is  and  we  being  what  we 
are,  the  creature  cannot  serve  the  Creator  with  any 
other  than  a  service  of  love.  This  is  what  the  Church 
means  when  she  tells  us,  that  without  some  love  in  our 
repentance,  we  are  incapable  of  absolution.  If  He 
gives  us  positive  precepts  or  an  acceptable  ceremonial, 
it  is  as  a  way  to  Him,  because  He  would  fain  secure 
our  love.  If  He  sends  His  Son  to  save  sinners,  it  is 
because  He  vouchsafes  to  appear  as  if  He  cannot  muko 


134     WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM. 

up  His  mind  to  lose  the  love  of  men.  If  He  takes  us 
to  Himself  in  heaven,  it  is  that  He  may  have  us  with 
Him,  and  feed  His  glory  on  our  love.  For  we  creatures 
cannot  be  His  end :  His  end  must  be  Himself,  and 
nothing  can  exist  except  for  His  glory.  If  He  detains 
U9  in  purgatory,  it  is  to  multiply  earth's  harvest  of 
love,  and  to  make  a  greater  profit  on  imperfect  souls. 
If,  dread  thought !  He  lays  us  in  the  hopeless  dismal 
deep  of  fire,  it  is  because  we  have  frustrated  His  yearn- 
ings, and  refused  Him  the  love  He  vouchsafed  so  incom- 
prehensibly to  covet. 

But  this  is  not  all.  He  seems  to  forget  that  He  is 
GoJ,  because  of  the  greatness  of  this  desire.  His  ever- 
blessed  Majesty  will  forgive  us  words  of  this  sort,  by 
which  alone  we  can  force  upon  our  dull  hearts  the  con- 
viction of  the  immensity  of  His  love.  He  appears  to 
deny  His  own  nature  and  greatness  in  order  to  obtain 
our  love.  Is  the  facility  of  pardon  consistent  with  the 
rigour  of  His  vindictive  justice,  or  with  the  spotlessness 
of  His  overwhelming  sanctity  ?  Is  it  easy  to  see  how 
He  should  require  the  unspeakable  sufferings  of  our 
dearest  Lord,  and  should  take  them  as  an  expiation  for 
the  sins  of  others,  and  for  sins  that  were  not  to  be  com- 
mitted till  hundreds  of  years  had  come  and  gone  ?  Is 
it  easy  to  see  why  baptized  infants  should  be  admitted 
to  enjoy  the  Beatific  Vision,  or  to  reconcile  with  our 
notions  of  right  that  he  who  came  to  toil  only  at  the 
eleventh  hour  should  receive  the  same  wages  with  him 
who  had  borne  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day  ?  Does 
God  seem  to  legislate  so  much  for  His  justice,  or  His 
sanctity,  or  His  dignity,  as  for  procuring  the  greatest 
number  of  souls  to  love  Him,  and  for  rendering  the 
harvest  of  redemption  as  enormous  as  the  perversity  of 
our  free-will  allows? 


WHY  GOD  WI63BS  US  TO  LOVE  HIM.  135 

There  is  a  further  difficulty  in  the  unintelligible  value 
which  lie  seems  to  set  upon  our  love.     Think  of  what 
our  love  is  like,  and  of  what  good  it  can  possibly  be  to 
God,  and  then  conceive  its  being  worth  the  price  He 
paid  for  it  on  Calvary!     Yet  if  we  do  not  suppose  is 
was  worth  it,  we  bring  a  charge  against  His  wis  lora, 
as  if  the  Incarnation  and  the  Passion  were  gratuitous 
and   exaggerated.     And  it  is  no  answer  to  say  that  it 
was  all  fur  our  sakes,  and  rather  a  proof  of  His  love  for 
us,  than  of  His  desire  for  our  love.     For  we  must  con- 
tinually bear  in  mind  what  sound  theology  teaches  us, 
that  God  alone  can  be  His  own  end,  and  not  we  crea- 
tures.    He  can  only  bless  us  for  His  own  glory.     It 
is  His  perfection,  that  He  must  needs   seek    Himself 
in  all  things.     He  would  not  be  God,  if  it  were  not 
so.     We  can  hardly  conceive  of  God  creating,  if   He 
did  not  set  a  value  upon  His  own  creation.     Yet  we 
could  not  bring  ourselves  to  believe  that  God  set  any 
great  value  upon  a  few  millions  of  round  orbs,  or  on 
ill  ir  velocity,  or  on  their  fidelity  to  their  orbits,  or  to 
their  eccentricities,  or  to  the  mere  vastness  of  sidereal 
space,  or  to  the  various  structure  of  matter,  or  to  the 
threads  of  metal  in  the  bowels  of  the  mountains,  or  to 
the  vivifying  force  of  the  solar  ray,  or  to  the  gigantic 
j  lay  of  the  ubiquitous  electricity,  or  to  fine  trees,  or  to 
clear  lakes,  or  to  sylvan  dells,  or  to  the  outlines  of  a  sea 
coast,  or  to  the  gorgeousness  of  sunsets,  or  to  the  pomp 
of  storms,  or  to  anything  whatever  of  that  sort.     Even, 
we  creatures  should  feel  that  we  were  lowering  Him 
in   our  own  estimation,  if   we  thought  that  He  set  a 
value  upon,  or  took  pains  with,  or  had  an  interest  in, 
such  things  as  these.     Yet  we  are  told  that  He  does 
distinctly  set  a  value  on  the  spirits  of  angels  and  the 
hearts  of  men.     Man  is  the  end  of  the  material  world, 


4 


136     WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  EM. 

but  God  alone  is  the  end  of  man.  Physical  philoso- 
phers can  love  strata  of  rock,  or  the  distribution  of 
plants,  or  a  peculiar  faum,  or  the  habits  of  earthquakes, 
or  the  occultations  of  stars,  or  the  physical  geography  of 
the  sea,  or  the  delicacies  of  chemistry,  more  than  they 
love  the  hearts  of  men,  the  slaves  of  the  south,  or  the 
inmates  of  a  hospital.  But  God  cannot  do  so.  All  His 
own  material  creation  is  worthless  to  Him  in  compa- 
rison with  one  peasant's  heart,  or  witli  one  child's  first 
serious  prayer.  He  has  given  away  with  the  indiffer- 
ence of  interminable  wealth,  all  the  rest  of  His  creation; 
but  hearts  He  has  kept  for  Himself,  and  will  not  even 
share  them,  much  less  surrender  them.  Yet  where 
is  their  value?  What  is  finite  love  to  an  Infinite 
Beatitude?  Really  it  is  not  easy  to  see.  Yet  can 
we  doubt  that  it  is  something,  and  something  very 
precious  in  His  eyes  to  whom  all  things  else  are  nothing 
worth  ? 

One  difficulty  more.     What  is  the  meaning  of  that 
surpassing    joy    which   human   love   causes   in    God  ? 
Surely  this  is  a  profound  mystery.     The  life  of  God 
is  joy,  joy  illimitable,  joy  ineffable,  joy  unimaginable, 
joy    eternal.      The    whole   bewildering   immensity   of 
angelical,  and  human  joy  is  but  a  tiny  drop  out  of 
the   boundless   ocean    of  the   joy   of   God.      What   a 
variety  of  joys  there  are  in  each  human  heart  1     No 
two  of  these  joys  are  exactly  the  same.     They  differ 
as  one  note  differs  from  another  note  in  music.     They 
make  new  joys  by  new  combinations.    Different  scenes, 
different  phases  of  life,  different  ages,  all  diversify  the 
throng  of  joys  which  one  human  heart  can  experience. 
Yet  no  two  hearts  are  exactly  alike ;  so  that  the  multi- 
tudinous joys  of  the  heart  are  to  be  multiplied  by  the 
myriads  and  myriads  of  hearts,   dead,  alive,   or   yefc 


WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HOI.  137 

unborn.  Now  every  one  of  these  joys  has  its  repre- 
sentative in  the  simple  plenitude  of  the  joy  of  God. 
Bat  what  are  human  joys  to  joys  angelical?  Yet  they 
too  are  all  but  a  manifold  umbrage  of  the  one  joy  of 
God.  The  joys  of  the  animal  creation,  their  joy  in 
health  and  strength,  in  light  and  air,  in  cold  and  heat, 
in  wet  and  dry,  in  their  sweet  songs  or  their  loud  wars, 
in  their  speed  of  flight  or  their  spring  of  muscle,  in 
tending  their  young  or  tearing  their  prey,  all  are  sha- 
dows, lowest,  dimmest,  faintest,  poorest  shadows  of  the 
joy  of  God.  And  who  is  sufficient  to  compute  these 
tnings?  And  what  if  the  joys  of  the  Immaculate 
Heart  of  the  Divine  Mother  are  to  Le  reckoned  also, 
an  1  those  of  that  Sicred  Heart  which  the  Person  of  the 
Word  deluged  with  its  oil  of  gladness,  and  yet  left  it 
human  still  ?  Yet  when  wTe  have  got  so  far,  we  can 
har<ily  be  said  to  have  begun.  Who  can  tell  the  joy 
of  the  Father  in  His  Innascibility,  or  the  joy  of  the  Son 
in  His  eternal  and  perpetual  Generation,  or  the  joy  of 
the  H  >\j  Ghost  in  His  everlasting  and  incessant  Pro- 
cession from  the  Father  and  the  Son  ?  The  Jubilee  of 
the  Father  and  the  Son  is  Himself,  not  a  thing  or  a 
perception,  but  an  eternal  Person,  Himself  the  illimit- 
able Limit  of  the  illimitable  GoJ.  Who  will  dare  to 
picture  to  himself  the  awful  and  majestic  jubilation  of 
the  August  Trinity  in  the  Threefoldness  of  Persons 
and  the  Unity  of  Essence?  God's  joy  in  His  own 
Oneness,— who  can  look  at  it  except  either  he  be 
stricken  with  an  extasy  of  rapture,  or  be  dissolved  in 
tears  of  believing  love?  And  is  all  this  not  enough? 
Is  God  seeking  joy,  more  joy,  joy  elsewhere?  And 
is  it  joy  in  creatures,  created  joy  ?  Can  His  own  joy 
hold  more,  can  it  grow,  can  it  receive,  can  it  want? 
If  not,  why  break  the  sileuce  of   eternity  to   create, 


138     THIY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  EDI. 

■why  this  hunting  after  human  love,  why  this  ardent 
patient  pursuit  after  sinful  hearts,  why  this  joy  over 
returning  sinners,  why  this  preciousness  in  His  sight 
of  the  death  of  His  saints?  We  may  indeed  ask,  why: 
but  can  we  give  an  answer  ?  O  heaven  and  earth  ! 
O  angels  and  men  !  What  a  being  God  is  !  What  a 
joy  it  is  to  be  a  creature!  Wh&t  a  glory  to  hsve  a 
Creator ! 

What  is  to  be  done  with  all  these  difficulties  ?  One 
thing  is  plain.  We  nee  J  not  try  to  answer  them.  St. 
Thomas  himself,  if  he  rose  from  the  dead,  could  not 
answer  them.  But  there  is  one  thing  to  be  observed 
about  them,  and  it  is  this.  While  they  are  such 
difficulties  as  make  us  doubt  whether  God  really  does 
desire  our  love,  they  are  at  the  same  time  irrefragable 
proofs  of  the  fact  of  His  desiring  it,  and  of  His  desiring 
it  with  a  most  mysterious  intensity.  They  prove  the 
fact,  if  they  do  not  account  for  it ;  and  they  prove  it  in 
such  a  way  as  that  we  need  not  have  it  accounted  for, 
in  order  to  receive  it.  For  we  can  have  no  doubt  about 
the  fact.  But  can  we  approximate  to  a  solution  of  the 
problem?  Can  we  throw  any  kind  of  light  upon  the 
mvstery  ?  Can  we  diminish  the  difficulties  which  we 
confessedly  are  unable  to  answer  ?  This  must  be  our 
next  endeavour;  and  whether  we  succeed  or  not,  we 
shall  at  least  gain  a  great  amount  of  additional  evidence 
to  the  fact  that  God  does  desire  our  love.  We  have  our 
misgivings  whether  we  shall  do  more  than  this. 

Let  us  look  first  of  all  at  the  kingdom  of  nature, 
whether  Divine,  angelical,  or  human,  and  see  if  it  does 
not  disclose  to  us  reasons  why  God  should  so  yearn 
for  the  affection  of  human  hearts.  One  reason  why 
it  is  impossible  for  us  to  comprehend  she  Divine 
Nature,  or  even  to  make  an  imaginary  picture  of  it,  is 


WH1  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM.  109 


;« 


its  extreme  and  adorable  simplicity.  Properly  speak 
ing,  God  has  no  perfections.  He  is  Himself  His 
own  one  sole  perfection,  the  perfection  of  perfections. 
"What  we  call  the  divine  perfections  are  only  our  im- 
perfect ways  of  approaching  towards  a  true  idea  of  Him. 
Nevertheless  we  are  capable  of  considering  Him  as  not 
our  Creator,  and  then  again  as  our  Creator.  We  know 
that  although  God  is  immutable,  still  there  was  a  time 
when  He  had  not  created  us,  and  again  a  time  when 
He  had  created  us.  Or  if  we  consider  that  He  had 
always  created  us  in  His  own  mind,  still  we  can,  from 
what  He  has  been  pleased  to  tell  us  of  Himself,  con- 
ceive of  Him  as  being  without  any  creatures  at  all.  As 
a  world  is  the  largest  thing  we  know  of,  a  cosmos,  an 
order,  a  beauty,  all  on  the  vastest  scale,  so  we  may 
dream  of  the  great  God  as  fourteen  worlds  in  Himself, 
of  surpassing  beauty  and  variety,  yet  all  without  limit 
and  circumscription,  and  one,  absolutely  one  in  their 
own  simplicity,  although  fourteen  in  our  conceptions. 

Four  of  these  worlds  seem — remember  how  utterly 
short  of  the  mark,  and  beside  it,  human  words  are  in 
the  matter — to  contain  the  inmost  life  of  God.  Wa 
call  them  His  Infinity,  His  Immensity,  His  Immuta- 
bility, and  His  Eternity.  They  are  at  once  conditions 
of  His  Essence,  and  of  all  the  perfections  which  we  can 
attribute  to  His  Essence.  Around  them  stand  four 
other  worlds,  of  ravishing  loveliness  enough  to  separate 
body  and  soul  if  we  might  see  them  uncloudedly. 
They  are  Omnipotence,  "Wisdom,  Perfection,  which  is 
the  natural  goodness  of  God,  and  Sanctity,  which  we 
may  call  His  moral  goodness.  Now  in  these  eight 
worlds  there  is  not  necessarily  any  respect  to  creatures. 
They  belong  to  the  eternal  Self-sufficiency  of  God  in- 
dependent of  any  creation  whatever.     They  furnish  us 


140  WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM. 

with  no  reason  at  all  why  God  should  desire  our  love. 
On  the  contrary  they  are  so  magnificently  self-sufficing, 
so  adorably  complete,  that  they  are  rather  so  many 
arguments  against  the  existence  of  any  such  unfathom- 
able desire. 

Around  these  eight  worlds  are  six  other  worlds,  to 
be  mentioned  only  with  the  wondering  humility  of 
filial  and  more  than  filial  love,  worlds  which  concern 
ourselves  and  are  coloured  by  our  destinies,  worlds  in 
which  we  ourselves  also  dwell  from  eternity,  and  which 
are  at  this  hour,  and  will  be  evermore,  our  only 
country  and  our  only  home.  They  are  the  Divine 
Benignity,  Dominion,  Providence,  Mercy,  Justice,  and 
that  perfection  of  God  which  we  call  His  being  the 
Last  End  of  all  things.  If  God  were  to  be  conceived 
without  creatures,  nothing  can  be  added  to  the  first 
eight  worlds,  and  nothing  taken  from  them,  without 
His  ceasing  to  be  God.  If  He  be  conceived  as  with 
creatures,  as  He  is  actually,  then  the  addition  of  any- 
thing to  the  whole  fourteen  worlds,  or  the  subtraction 
of  anything  from  them,  would  inevitably  alter  our  idea 
of  God.  We  may  use  many  other  great  words  of  Him, 
but  the  meaning  of  them,  the  excellence  intended  by 
them,  is  already  implied  and  included  in  one  of  these 
fourteen  worlds. 

Now  the  very  existence  of  those  six  worlds  in  God 
of  itself  will  furnish  us  with  most  overwhelming  proofs 
of  His  desire  that  we  should  love  Him.  Yet  it  doea 
not  appear  that  it  in  any  way  accounts  for  the  existence 
of  that  desire.  And  the  fact  that  this  desire  is  founded 
in  the  very  nature  of  God,  and  the  very  immensity  of 
His  perfection,  is  the  more  overwhelming  when  we 
reflect  that,  although  we  can  by  an  arbitrary  act  of 
our  hna^inatior,  conceive  God  to  be  without  creatures, 


WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HDL  141 

yet  in  point  of  fact  He  never  was  so,  as  He  had  created 
the  world  in  His  own  mind  from  the  beginning:  and 
thus  the  idea  of  Creator,  and  consequently  of  all  that  it 
implies,  is  inseparable  from  Him. 

The  eternity  of  God  before  creation  is  a  collection 
of  mysteries,  which  it  is  vain  for  us  to  sound.     In  what 
way  His  decrees,  enclosed  in   His  own  mind,  minis- 
tered to  Ills  glory,  or  gave  exercise  to  His  mercy  op 
His  justice  or  His  providence,  why  the  primal  creation 
of  the  angels  took  place  as  soon  as  it  did,  or  why  it 
did  not  take  place  sooner,  why  He, — not  broke,  not 
interrupted,    not    disturbed,    all   that   is    impossible— 
but  why  He  superadded  to,  the  tranquil  self-sufficiency 
of  that  eternity,  not  the  effort,  not  the  toil,  but  the 
fulfilling  of  His  will,  in  the  act  of  creation,  whether 
the  absence  of  a  heaven  full  of  rational  and  beatified 
worshippers  could  in  any  sense  at  all  add  anything  to 
the   uncreated  solitude  of  the  Three  Divine  Persons, 
whether  their  foreseen  worship  in  His  mind,  to  whom 
there  is  no  past  or  future,  but  only  one  active  unsuc- 
cessive  present,  wa3  precisely  the  same  to  Him  as  its 
actual  existence  external  to  Himself,  how  it  was  that 
this  worship  did  not  in  any  way  illustrate  or  beautify 
God's  perfection  in  His  own  esteem, — what  can  we  say 
of  all  these  things  than  that  they  are  beyond  us:  and 
jet  also  that  they  make  us  feel  how  astonishingly  inti- 
mate to  God  is  His  desire   of  His   creature's   love? 
Surely  in  this  wide  field  of  colossal  miracles,  here  is 
fresh  proof  of  the  desire,  fresh  example  of  its  intensity, 
yet  no  solution  of  the  enigma. 

We  have  nothing  to  do  here  with  theological  dis- 
putes regarding  the  order  of  the  Divine  Decrees.  We 
know  that  none  could  have  any  precedence  or  priority 
in  respect  of  time.    Their  order  could  be   only   thaS 


1-12  WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM. 

of  dignity  and  eminence.  But  what  a  fountain  of 
affectionate  thoughts,  thoughts  honourable  to  God  in 
the  highest  degree,  is  opened  up  in  the  dark  depths  of 
His  mysterious  predestination.  We  know  that  God  is 
free,  and  that  nothing  can  impair  the  spotlessness  of 
His  transcendent  liberty.  Yet  how  can  we  conceive 
otherwise  of  predestination  than  as  God  binding  Him- 
self, putting  conditions,  like  fetters,  on  His  own  royal 
and  everlasting  liberty  ;  and  for  our  sakes,  out  of  love 
of  us,  in  order  to  have  our  love?  Inconceivable 
mystery  I  how  can  we  believe  it  without  a  very  miracle 
of  grace  and  infused  faith?  Men  talk  as  if  it  was  theit 
liberty  which  suffered  in  the  act  of  predestination. 
Kay,  rather  it  is  the  liberty  of  God.  Wayward  men! 
as  if  we  were  to  be  always  suspecting  God,  always  on 
our  guard  against  Him,  as  if  He  could  be  infringing 
our  liberty,  who  has  already  given  us  His  glory  to  make 
as  free  with  almost  as  we  please  !  How  can  that  act 
injure  our  liberty,  when  without  it,  we  should  not  even 
have  had  life?  We  owe  our  liberty  to  our  life,  and 
our  life  to  God's  predestination.  We  are  free  as  air, 
only  too  free,  all  things  considered.  But  it  has  puzzled 
the  wisest  understandings  of  mankind  to  see  how  the 
magnificent  liberty  of  God  rests  unimpaired  by  the 
prodigal  compassions  of  Ilia  eternal  predestination. 
But  it  was  as  if  a  necessity  were  upon  Him.  Give  me 
children  or  I  die,  said  the  impetuous  Rachel,  longing  to 
be  a  mother.  So,  at  all  costs,  God  must  have  creatures 
to  love  Him,  sons  to  honour  and  to  serve  Him  and  to 
keep  Him  immortal  company.  At  any  cost  He  must 
have  created  love,  over  which  to  outpour  Himself  with 
a  stupendous  communication  of  uncreated  love,  com- 
placency, and  joy. 
Hence  who  does  not  see  that  He  created  all  men, 


WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM.  143 

together  with  all  angels,  to  be  saved  ;  and  yet  by  that 
act  He  loft  their   freedom   unimpaired  ?     Uefore — ■wo 
are  speaking  as  words  compel  us — before  He  had  fore- 
seen aught  else,  and  moved  only  bj  the  excess  of  His 
own  unspeakable  goodness,  He  decreed  to  create  the 
natures  of  ang^s  and  men,  simply  that  He  might  raise 
them  to  the  vision  of  Himself  and  to  participate  in  His 
beatitude.       He    chose    no    certain  number,  so    as    to 
exclude  others.     In  the  adorably  real  sincerity  of  His 
own  will,  lie  would  have  all  men,  and  all  angJ>,  saved, 
and  was  ready  to  give,  to  each  and  all,  the  necessary 
graces.     Hence  also  came  that  marvellous  determina- 
tion of  superabundant  love  to  create  both  angels  and 
men  in  a  state  of  grace,  that  they    might   the   more 
readily  attain  to  their  supernatural  end,  by  beginning 
with  grace  instead  of  having  to  wait  for  it.     Creation 
in  a  state  of  grace  is  the  wonder  of  creation  doubled. 
Then  when  He  foresaw  the  free  and  wilful  demerits  of 
some,  and  the  free  loyal  correspondence  to    grace   in 
others,  there  was  no  energy  in  that  prevision  to  secure 
the  condemnation  of  the  first,  while  His  mercy  rejoiced 
already  to  adorn  and  set  aside  the  crowns  for  the  second. 
Nor  was  it,  as  we  suppose,  until  after  this  prevision  that 
there  was  any  absolute  election  or  reprobation.     And 
thus  man's  liberty  was  secured  throughout:    and   tie 
result  is,  that  of  all  the  multitudes  of  those  who  are 
lost,  not  one  can  attribute  his  ruin   to  any  predeter- 
mining act  of  God,  but  simply  to  their  own  efforts  to 
free  themselves  from  the  solicitudes  of  His  grace,  while 
of  all  the  countless  souls  and  spirits  of  the  blessed,  there 
is  not  one  who  does  not  owe  his  joy  to  the  eternal  pre- 
destination of  his  Maker.      And  what  is  all  this  but 
another  set  of  evidences  to  prove  the  greatness  of  Uod'a 


144  WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM. 

desire  to  have  our  love,  while  it  still  leaves  deep  down 
in  the  abyss  of  His  goodness  the  reason  of  this  desire  ? 

If  we  consider  the  arrangements  of  creation  and 
natural  preservation,  we  shall  see  that  they  in  like 
manner  testify  to  the  Creator's  desire  to  excite  our 
love.  It  is  impossible  to  make  too  much  of  the  fact 
that  both  angels  and  men  were  created  in  a  state  of 
grace.  The  more  we  think  of  it,  the  more  we  see  that  ifc 
is  a  complete  revelation  in  itself.  Then  again  there  is  a 
sort  of  superabundance  in  our  natural  gifts.  We  have  so 
many  more  than  seem  absolutely  necessary  to  our  dis- 
charging the  duties  for  which  we  came  into  the  world. 
Life  is  itself  an  intense  pleasure  ;  so  much  so  that  men 
prize  it  above  all  other  things.  The  most  miserable  of 
men  will  hardly  part  without  reluctance  with  the  simple 
power  of  living.  All  our  natural  gifts  also  are  so  con- 
structed as  to  be  avenues  of  enjoyment  and  delight. 
There  is  not  a  sense,  in  whose  exercise  there  is  not  a 
keenness  and  a  peculiarity  of  satisfaction,  of  which  those 
who  lack  that  sense,  can  form  no  adequate  conception. 
It  requires  a  soul,  either  in  the  strength  of  its  first  in- 
tegrity or  in  the  vigour  of  supernatural  grace,  to  hold  us 
back  from  being  swept  away  by  the  might  of  sensual 
pleasure.  The  exercise  of  the  various  faculties  of  the 
mind  also  open  out  new  sources  of  the  strangest  delight 
and  the  most  thrilling  happiness.  We  can  think  of 
and  count  up  a  score  of  different  pleasurable  feelings 
consequent  on  the  use  of  our  minds,  not  one  of  which 
we  can  adequately  describe  in  words.  What  then  shall 
we  say  of  the  romance  and  nobility  of  the  affections  of 
our  hearts,  those  very  hearts  God  so  much  covets? 
Almost  as  many  loves  grow  in  the  soil  of  the  heart,  as 
there  are  winea  in  the  vineyards  of  the  earth :  and  has 


WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HI3J.  145 

cot  the  whole  world  many  a  time  gone  wild  with  their 
intoxication? 

So  also  in  the  adaptation  of  material  nature  to  our 
dominion,  everything  is  characterized  by  excessive  pro- 
fusion, by  unnecessary  beauty.  Everything  almost 
lias  a  sweetness  beyond  and  beside  its  own  proper 
function.  The  heathen  talked  of  Mother  Earth;  and 
truly  God  has  filled  her  teeming  bosom  with  the  milk 
of  more  than  a  mother's  kindness.  Whether  she 
feeds,  or  heals,  or  soothes,  or  inspires,  or  simply  wins 
us  by  the  lustre  of  her  physical  beauty,  she  is  ever 
doing  more  than  she  promises,  and  enhances  her  gifts 
by  the  fondness  of  her  ministrations.  There  is  some- 
thing to  make  us  tremble  to  see  with  what  fineness 
of  balance,  with  what  nicety  of  restraint,  our  Creator 
tames  the  huge  elements  in  our  behalf,  and  makes  us 
live  at  ease  amid  the  bewildering  vastness  of  their  opera- 
tions, and  close  by  the  uneasy  laboratories  of  their 
titanic  power.  Everywhere,  and  for  our  sakes,  He 
governs,  not  through  the  catastrophes  of  violent  power, 
but  through  the  meekness  of  a  patient  and  a  pleasant 
uniformity.  Here  is  fresh  demonstration  that  He  craves 
our  love,  and  no  reason  given  but  the  blessed  one  of  His 
free  benignant  will. 

Once  more,  before  we  leave  the  kingdom  of  nature, 

let   us   look  at  the   way  in  which  the  Bible  discloses 

Him  to  us  in  successive  dispensations.     He  plants   an 

Eden  for  His  new-made  creatures,  and  then  comes  to 

them  Himself,  and  the  evenings  of   the  young  world 

ere   consecrated   by    familiar    colloquies  between   the 

creatures  and   their  Creator.     He  tests  their  love  by 

the  lightest  of  precepts;  and  when  they   have  broken 

it,   clear  above  the  accents  of  a    strangely   moderate 

anger  are  heard  the  merciful  promises  ot  a  Saviour. 
10      t 


146     WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM. 

Then  comes  centuries  of  mysterious  strife,  like  Jacob 
■wrestling  with  God  by  the  tinkling  waters  of  the  mid- 
night stream.  No  sin  seems  to  weary  Him.  No  way- 
wardness is  a  match  for  the  perseverance  of  His  love. 
Merciful  and  miraculous  interventions  are  never  want- 
ing. No  gifts  are  thought  too  much  or  too  good,  if 
the  creatures  will  but  condescend  to  take  them.  On 
the  Mesopotamian  sheep-walks,  in  the  Egyptian  brick- 
fields, in  the  palm  spotted  wilderness,  among  the  vine- 
yards of  Engaddi,  by  the  headlong  floods  of  harsh 
Babylon,  it  is  always  the  same.  God  cannot  do  with- 
out us.  He  cannot  afford  to  lose  our  love.  He  clings 
to  us;  He  pleads  with  us;  He  punishes  only  to  get 
love,  and  stays  His  hand  in  the  midst ;  He  melts 
our  hearts  with  beautiful  complainings;  He  mourns 
like  a  rejected  lover  or  a  suspected  friend  ;  He  appeals 
to  us  with  a  sort  of  humility  which  has  no  parallel 
in  human  love.  What  a  character  of  God  we  should 
draw  from  the  Bible  only  !  and  what  would  it  all 
come  to,  but  that  to  win  the  love  of  His  creatures 
was  the  ruling  passion  of  the  Creator?  Oh  !  horrible 
beyond  all  horrors  must  the  heart  be  that  will  not 
love  God,  that  particular  God  of  the  Bible,  the  God 
of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  the  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ!  God  desiring,  and  man  withholding, 
and  then  God  getting,  as  it  were  by  stealth  or  by 
caress,  less  than  a  tithe  of  His  due  from  less  than  a  ti'the 
of  His  creation,  and  then  as  it  were  spreading  Himself 
out  in  a  kind  of  joyous  triumph  at  His  success, — is  not 
this  a  truthful  compendium  of  the  Bible  history  ? 

If  from  nature  we  turn  to  grace,  we  shall  find  that 
the  whole  resolves  itself  into  a  loving  pursuit  of  souls 
on  the  part  of  God.  We  shall  meet  there  the  same 
evidence  of  the  fact  with  as  little  solution  of  the  diffi- 


WIIY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HI31.  147 

culty.  Tiie  kingdom  of  grace,  if  it  is  not  founded  on 
the  permission  of  evil,  seems  at  least  to  imply  it ;  anil 
the  permission  of  evil  is  nothing  less  than  the  intense 
desire  of  the  Creator  for  the  free  love  of  His  creatures. 
Surely  that  is  what  lies  at  the  bottom  of  this  terrific 
mystery.  At  what  a  price  must  He  estimate  the  love 
of  angels  and  of  men,  if  He  would  run  so  fearful  a  risk 
to  gain  it?  Nay,  it  could  be  no  risk  to  Him  whose 
foreknowledge  made  all  tilings  present  to  Him.  Every 
possible,  as  well  as  every  actual,  consequence  of  that 
permission  was  vividly  before  Him,  and  yet  He  per- 
sisted. It  was  worth  while.  It  was  for  His  glory,  and 
His  glory  is  our  inestimable  good.  If  evil  was  not  per- 
mitted, angels  and  men  would  not,  according  to  the 
present  dispensation,  be  free.  If  they  were  not  free, 
they  could  not  serve  Him  with  a  service  of  love ;  for 
freedom  is  necessary  to  love.  They,  whom  the  sight  of 
Him  now  confirms  in  holiness  for  evermore,  would  not 
have  won  their  crowns  ;  and  therefore  a  heaven  of  saints 
ready  made  from  the  beginning  would  not  in  fact  have 
been,  in  the  same  sense  that  it  is  now,  a  service  of  free 
•allegiance  and  voluntary  love.*  Yet  what  a  fearful 
venture,  rather  what  an  appalling  certainty,  was  that 
permission  of  evil !  The  All-merciful  saw  before  Him 
the  burning  abyss,  so  sadly  populous.  It  was  to  Him 
a  vision  of  more  unutterable  horror  than  it  could  be 
even  to  the  capacious  soul  of  Mary  or  the  keen  intelli- 
gence of  Michael.     Yet  onward  He  drove  right  through 

*  A  world  of  reasonable  beings,  either  with  nngrowing  merits,  like  those  of 
the  Sacred  Humanity,  or  confirmed  in  grace  from  the  first,  like  our  Blessed 
Lady,  is  a  thing  of  which  we  have  no  experience,  and  which  is  opposed  to 
the  divine  laws  as  exhibited  in  the  two  creations  of  which  we  know,  and  from 
which  alone  we  can  argue,  and  not  from  the  exceptional  cases  of  the  Sacred 
Humanity  or  our  Lady.  We  can  hardly  conceive  the  permission  of  evil  to 
have  Lc-eu  ainplj  gratuitous,  without  any  moral  reasons  in  the  character  of 
God. 


148  WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOYE  HIM. 

it,  in  the  plenitude  of  that  greater  and  more  over- 
whelming goodness  wherewith  He  yearned  for  His 
creature's  love.  O  what  clearness  of  demonstration  is 
there  here  in  the  pitchy  darkness  of  that  intolerable 
6ecret! 

Then  that  grave  permission  came  to  His  eldest  sons, 
to  that  primeval  world  of  angels.  For  one  moment  they 
looked  at  Him  in  all  the  beauty  of  His  kind  dominion, 
and  then  they  looked  at  self  with  its  enticing  liberty, 
and  forthwith  one  whole  multitude,  a  third  of  that  wide 
empire,  ten  million  times  ten  million  spirits,  a  very 
universe  of  loveliness  and  gifts  and  graces,  made  their 
irremediable  choice,  and  in  the  madness  of  their  liberty 
leaped  into  the  stunning  war  of  the  fiery  whirlpool, 
far  away  from  the  meek  paternal  majesty  of  God. 
Their  irremediable  choice  !  what  a  thought  is  that  for 
us !  The  angels  could  not  complain.  They  had  had 
a  marvellous  abundance  of  love.  The  gifts  of  their 
nature  were  something  beyond  our  power  of  imagining. 
They  were  so  bright  and  vast  and  sure  as  to  be  almost 
a  security  in  themselves  against  a  fall.  They  had  also 
been  created  in  a  state  of  grace,  and  doubtless  of  the 
most  exquisite  and  resplendent  grace.  Moreover  they 
had  all  perhaps  merited  immensely  by  the  first  act  of 
love  with  which  they  greeted  their  Creator  in  the  exult- 
ing moment  when  at  His  dear  will  their  grand  spirits 
sprung  from  nothingness.  Yet  one  chance,  one  only! 
Our  different  experience  of  God  makes  us  tremble  at 
the  thought.  When  we  broke  our  light  precept,  and 
forfeited  our  original  integrity,  He  would  not  lose  us 
so.  He  only  redoubled  His  mercies,  and  multiplied 
our  means  of  salvation ;  so  that  it  has  become  almost  a 
doubt  in  theology  whether  we  are  not  better  off  now 
that  we  have  fallen,  than  we  should  have  been  had  we 


TOT  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM.  149 

preserved  the  innocence  and  rectitude  of  paradise. 
"When  we  consider  the  various  dispensations  which 
followed  the  fall,  the  antediluvian  times,  the  patriarchal 
dispensation,  the  levitical,  the  Christian,  aa  if  God 
vould  still  leave  us  free,  yet  for  all  that,  and  in  spite 
of  fearful  losses,  would  not  be  baffled  in  His  yearning 
for  our  love,  we  might  almost  venture  to  compare  His 
infinite  Majesty  to  one  of  His  own  insignificant  crea- 
tures, to  the  spider  who  with  the  same  quiet  assiduity 
of  toil  is  ever  repairing  its  often  broken  web,  still 
trusting  the  same  treacherous  site,  still  braving  the 
eame  almost  inevitable  calamities.  Can  we  give  any 
reason  for  this,  or  say  more,  than  that  there  is  a  reason 
vhich  God  has  hidden  in  the  greatness  of  Hia  own 
goodness? 

The  Incarnation,  that  mystery  of  the  divine  magni- 
ficence, in  which  all  the  intelligible  perfections  of  God 
pass  in  array  before  us  as  in  beautiful  procession, 
teaches  us  the  same  lesson.  If  God  would  have  come 
to  His  unfallen  creatures,  and  been  borne  within  the 
womb  of  a  human  Mother,  and  have  shared  our  nature, 
and  have  lived  among  us,  and  for  three-and- thirty 
years  have  unfolded  countless  mysteries  of  glory,  sur- 
passing even  those  of  the  paschal  forty  days,  what  can 
we  say  but  that  it  would  have  been  a  proof  of  His 
desire  for  His  creature's  love,  which  we  could  only  have 
adored  in  silent  thankfulness?  A  creature  the  Creator 
cannot  be;  but  He  will  have  a  created  Nature,  and 
make  it  unspeakably  one  with  His  Divine  Person,  so 
that  He  may  be  more  like  one  of  ua,  and  heighten  our 
reverence  by  the  trembling  freedoms  of  our  familiarity, 
if  only  He  may  so  enjoy  vast[augmentations  of  human 
love.  If  because  we  fell,  He  changed  the  manner  of 
His  coming,  if  rather  than  abandon  His  coming  He 


150  WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM. 

plunged  His  Mother  and  Himself  in  a  very  ocean  of 
sorrows,  if,  without  humbling  us  by  telling  us  of  the 
change,  He  contentedly  took  shame  for  glory,  suffering 
for  joy,  slavery  for  a  kingdom,  the  cross  instead  of  the 
crown,  what  did  it  all  show  but  that  He  would  still 
have  our  love,  and  that  with  ingenious  compassion, 
which  could  only  be  diviae,  He  would  take  the  advan- 
tage of  our  miseries  to  exalt  us  all  the  more,  and  so  win 
more  abundant  love  ?  If  He  came  only  because  we  had 
fallen,  if  He  condescended  to  be  but  a  remedy  for  an 
evil,  if  He  stooped  to  fight  our  battle  in  person,  and  in 
human  flesh,  with  our  triumphant  enemy,  if  the  Incar- 
nation was  an  interference  to  prevent  His  own  world 
from  being  stolen  from  Him,  if  it  was  a  fresh  invention 
out  of  the  boundless  resources  of  the  divine  pity,  then 
still  what  does  it  mean  but  that  He  would  not  let  us 
go,  He  would  not  let  us  lore  ourselves,  because  in  His 
strangely  persevering  goodness  He  would  not  lose  our 
love? 

So  again  what  Is  the  Church  but  His  way  of  ren- 
dering the  blessings  of  His  Incarnation  omnipresent 
and  everlasting  ?  What  is  the  Baptism  of  infants  but 
a  securing  prematurely,  and  as  it  were  against  all 
reason,  the  eternal  love  of  their  unconscious  souls? 
What  is  Confession,  but  mercy  made  common,  justice 
almost  eluded,  the  most  made  out  of  the  least  ?  These 
are  human  words,  but  they  express  something  true. 
What  is  the  sacrament  of  Confirmation  but  an  act  of 
jealousy,  lest  the  world  should  steal  from  God  what  He 
had  already  got  ?  What  is  the  sacrament  of  Matrimony, 
but  a  taking  of  the  stuff  and  substance  of  human  life, 
its  common  sorrows  and  joys,  its  daily  smiles  and  tears, 
the  wear  and  tear  of  its  rough  and  smooth,  and  elevating 
it  all  by  a  sort  of  heavenly  transfiguration  into  a  ceaseless 


WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  Hill.  151 

fountain  of  supernatural  and  meritorious  love  ?  What 
is  Extreme  Unction,  but  an  expression  of  affectionate 
nervousness,  if  we  may  so  speak,  of  our  clearest  Lord, 
lest  we  should  fail  Him  just  at  the  last,  when  so  many 
risks  are  run  ?  What  is  the  sacrament  of  Order,  but 
systematising  and  ensuring  a  succession  of  daily  mira- 
cles, such  as  consecrations,  absolutions,  exorcisms,  and 
benedictions,  each  one  of  which  is  to  create,  and  then 
to  fertilize,  and  then  to  beautify,  a  little  world  of 
love  for  Him  ?  Ask  the  Divine  Solitary  of  the  taber- 
nacle why  He  lives  His  hermit  life  amongst  us,  and 
what  could  His  answer  be  but  this — I  wait,  to  show 
love  and  to  receive  it?  But  wide  as  He  has  made  the 
ample  bosom  of  His  Church,  and  though  He  has 
multiplied  with  a  commonness,  which  almost  injures 
reverence,  the  potent  sacraments,  this  is  not  enough. 
None  must  slip  through,  if  He  can  but  help  it.  None 
must  be  lost  except  in  His  despite.  There  must  be 
something  still  left,  which  needs  no  priest,  something 
as  wide  as  air  and  as  free,  which  men  may  have  when 
they  cannot  have,  or  at  the  needful  moment  cannot 
find,  the  sacraments  of  His  own  loving  institution. 
One  thing  there  is,  and  one  only,  and  we  are  not  surely 
now  surprised  to  find  that  one  thing, — love.  If  need 
be,  love  can  baptize  without  water,  can  confirm  without 
chrism,  can  absolve  without  ordination,  can  almost 
communicate  without  a  Host.  For,  great  as  are  the 
sacraments,  love  is  a  higher  emanation  of  that  priest- 
hood which  is  for  ever  according  to  the  order  of  Mel- 
chisedech.  How  shall  we  read  these  riddles,  if  they 
may  not  mean  that  God  so  desires  our  love,  that  He 
almost  tires  our  attention  and  outstrips  our  imagination 
by  the  novelty  and  profusion  of  His  merciful  desires  to 


152  WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM. 

secure  this  marvellously  priceless  treasure,  the  puny 
love  of  finite  hearts? 

There  are  many  difficulties  in  the  doctrine  of  grace, 
as  well  as  in  those  of  predestination  and  the  permissioo 
of  evil,  which  seem  to  interfere  with  our  perception  of 
God's  love,  with  its  impartiality  as  well  as  its  com- 
pleteness. But  if  we,  each  of  us,  remove  the  cause 
from  the  theological  schools  to  the  court  in  our  own 
hearts,  these  difficulties  will  be  greatly  diminished,  if 
not  entirely  dispelled.  Let  our  own  hearts  therefore 
be  the  last  part  of  the  kingdom  of  grace  which  we  shall 
examine.  Can  any  one  of  us  say  that  we  have  not 
received  numberless  graces  to  which  we  have  not  cor- 
responded ?  Have  we  ever  sinned,  not  only  without 
its  being  wilfully  done,  but  also  without  a  distinct  re- 
sistance to  conscience,  grace,  or  contrary  inspirations  ? 
If  we  were  to  die  and  be  lost  at  this  moment,  is  it  not  as 
clear  as  the  sun  at  noon  that  we  have  no  one  to  blame 
for  it  but  ourselves  ?  Has  not  our  whole  life  been  one 
series  of  merciful  interferences  on  the  part  of  GodP 
Have  there  not  been  many  times  when  our  petulanee 
and  waywardness  have  reached  such  a  point,  that  we  in 
like  case  should  have  given  up  our  dearest  friends,  our 
closest  kindred,  as  past  the  possibility  of  amendment,  or 
not  worth  the  trouble  of  reproof?  And  yet  God  has 
not  given  us  up.  His  tenderness,  His  liberality,  His 
assiduity,  His  patience,  His  hopefulness,  and  if  we  may 
use  the  word,  His  extraordinary  unprovokedness,  have 
been  beyond  all  words.  And  how  do  we  stand  at  this 
hour  ?  We  have  merited  hell.  Perhaps  we  have 
merited  it  a  thousand  times  over.  We  ought  to  be 
there  now,  if  justice  had  all  its  rights.  But  it  is  an 
unjust  world,  and  God  is  the  grand  victim  of  its  injus- 
tice.   He  alone  has  not  His  rights.   He  lets  His  mercy 


WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM.     153 

do  strange  things  with  Hi9  liberty.  We  have  merited 
Iiell  purely  of  our  own  free  will :  nay,  we  have  had  to 
stifle  inward  reproaches  and  to  make  considerable  efforts 
in  order  to  accomplish  our  own  perdition.  That  we  are 
not  yet  in  hell,  that  we  have  actually  a  good  chance 
of  heaven,  is  simply  because  God  cannot  find  in  His 
heart  to  abandon  the  possibility  of  our  love.  In  a 
word,  look  at  yourself,  for  self  is  the  only  thing  which 
concerns  you  in  these  difficulties  of  grace  and  predesti- 
nation. Has  God  ever  done  you  anything  but  good  ? 
Has  He  not  done  you  an  overwhelming  amount  of 
good  ?  Has  He  not  simply  been  so  good  to  you,  that 
you  yourself  cannot  conceive  of  anything,  except  the 
Divine  Nature,  being  so  ^ood?  Either  in  kind,  or  in 
degree,  in  manner,  or  in  matter,  can  you  so  much  as 
conceive  of  any  created  goodness  being  anything  like  so 
good?  O  merciful  God !  Thou  art  too  good  to  us.  Thou 
8tande8t  in  Thine  own  light.  Thy  mercies  hide  in  one 
another;  they  go  out  of  sight  because  they  are  so  tall: 
they  pass  unnoticed  because  they  are  bo  deep :  they 
weary  our  thankfulness  because  they  are  so  numerous: 
they  make  us  disbelieve  because  they  are  so  gratuitous, 
80  common,  so  enduring.  We  should  more  readily  have 
acknowledged  what  Thou  hast  done  for  us,  if  Thou  hadst 
only  done  much  less! 

Are  we  tired  of  this  evidence,  especially  when  \t 
leaves  still  unexplained  the  mystery  it  so  amply  proves? 
This  is  not  the  place  to  discus3  the  joys  of  the  Beatific 
Vision,  although  there  is  hardly  a  more  tempting  pro- 
vince of  theology.  Nevertheless  we  can  hardly  close 
our  case  without  some  consideration  of  the  kingdom  of 
glory,  considered  in  reference  to  our  present  enquiry. 
In  the  case  of  a  parent  or  a  teacher  we  judge  of  the 
value  set  upon  a  particular  line  of  conduct,  by  the 


154  WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIST. 

greatness  of  the  reward  promised  and  actually  con- 
ferred. Now,  if  we  love  God,  the  reward  promised  us 
is  nothing  less  than  the  sight  of  God  Himself,  face  to 
Face,  not  transiently,  not  as  a  glorious  flash  of  light 
renewed  once  in  ten  thousand  years  to  feed  our  immor- 
tality with  contentment  and  delight,  but  an  abiding 
Vision,  a  glory  and  a  gladness,  a  marvellous  rapture  of 
the  will,  and  an  extasy  of  vast  intelligence,  for  ever- 
more. Think  how  such  a  reward  transcends  all  the 
expectations,  all  the  possibilities  even,  of  our  nature ! 
How  God  must  love  us,  and  how  too  He  must  love  our 
love,  to  have  prepared  for  us  sucli  joys  as  these,  which 
eye  has  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  man's  heart 
conceived  ! 

We  must  consider  also  that  although  our  beatitude, 
quite  rigorously  speaking,  does  not  consist  so  much  or 
so  directly  in  love,  as  in  the  actual  vision  of  God  by 
our  understandings,  nevertheless  love  is  that  which  im- 
mediately follows  from  it,  and  which  is  directly  con- 
natural to  it.  So  that  it  comes  to  this :  our  reward  is 
for  having  loved  God;  it  is  no  less  a  reward  than  God 
Himself,  not  any  of  His  gifts  ;  and  it  is  an  ability  to 
love  Him  infinitely  better  than,  we  have  ever  done 
before,  and  also  eternally.  He  takes  us  to  Himself.  He 
makes  us  His  own  companions  for  evermore.  He  multi- 
plies Himself  in  us,  and  reflects  Himself  in  our  beatified 
souls,  as  if  it  were  in  so  many  images  of  Himself.  "In 
other  created  things,"  says  Lessius,  "as  in  the  fabric  of 
the  world,  and  the  various  degrees  of  things,  certain 
thin  rays  of  His  divinity  shine  forth,  from  which  we 
can,  as  it  were  by  a  conjecture,  learn  His  power,  His 
wisdom,  and  His  goodness.  But  in  our  minds  elevated 
by  the  light  of  glory  and  united  to  Him  in  the  Beatific 
Vision,  the  whole  plenitude  of   the   divinity  shines 


WnY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM.  Ij5 

forth,  the  whole  of  His  beauty  softly  glows  ;  so  that, 
although  the  divinity  is  one  in  itself,  it  is  in  a  marvel- 
lous manner  multiplied,  so  that  there  seem  to  be  as 
many  divinities  as  there  are  beatified  minds."  Love  is 
the  reason  of  the  reward,  love  is  the  consequence  of  the 
reward,  love  is  the  conduct  rewarded,  and  the  reward 
itself  is  love.  If  we  knew  nothing  more  of  God  than 
this,  need  more  be  known  ? 

"We  must  not  forget  also  the  huge  price  which  this 
reward  has  cost  our  Creator.  When  we  had  forfeited 
it,  it  required  as  it  were  an  effort  of  all  His  conjoined 
perfections  to  recover  it  for  us  once  again.  A  God  made 
Man,  the  shame  of  a  God,  the  sufferings  of  a  God,  the 
Blood  of  a  God,  the  death  of  a  God  !  Such  was  the 
price  of  what  we  shall  one  day  enjoy  in  heaven.  What 
can  we  do  but  weep  silently?  How  do  all  complaints 
about  the  permission  of  evil  and  the  mystery  of  elec- 
tion die  away,  when  we  think  of  things  like  these ! 
How  ungraceful,  ungraceful  rather  than  ungrateful,  do 
they  seem!  The  Incarnation  of  a  God,  the  shame  of  a 
God,  the  sufferings  of  a  God,  the  Blood  of  a  God,  the 
death  of  a  God  !  That  was  what  I  cost!  It  is  now  my 
daily  bread,  my  daily  light,  my  daily  life.  I  confess 
that  faith  is  almost  overwhelmed  with  these  considera- 
tions. O  for  some  corner,  the  least,  the  lowest,  and  the 
last  in  the  world  to  come,  where  we  may  spend  an 
untired  eternity  in  giving  silent  thanks  to  Jesus  Cruci- 
fied ! 

But,  if  what  God  paid  was  so  great,  the  littleness 
of  what  earns  it  on  our  part  is  a  mystery  almost  as 
wonderful.  A  Magdahn's  love  was  but  a  paltry  price 
to  pay  for  a  reward  so  vast.  But  think  of  the  dying 
thief!  One  act  of  love,  one  act  of  contrition,  the  brief 
tardy  graces  of  a  death-bed, — what  must  be  the  might 


ICG 


WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  EliT. 


of  our  Saviour's  Blood  when  it  can  concentrate  the 
whole  merit  of  eternal  life  in  such  little  momentary 
things  as  these?  If  we  died  at  this  moment,  it  is  our 
firm  hope  that  we  should  be  saved ;  and  yet  can  our 
hope  rest  on  what  we  ourselves  have  done  ?  Is  thero 
not  something  paiuful  in  confronting  the  magnitude 
of  our  recompense,  with  the  trifling  service  we  have 
given  God  but  grudgingly,  out  of  hearts  only  half 
weaned  from  the  world,  and  scarcely  weaned  at  all 
from  self?  Surely  God  must  desire  our  love  with  an 
amazing  fervour  of  desire,  when  He  gives  so  much  to 
have  so  little  in  return ! 

There  is  one  thing  more  to  remark  about  the  Beatific 
Vision,  before  we  close  our  case.    It  is  a  very  obviou3 
reflection,  yet  perhaps  we  do  not  dwell  upon  it  suffi- 
ciently, that  nOw,  in  our  fallen  state,  it  is  not'innocence 
which  earns  the 'sight  of  God,  but  love,  humble,  re- 
pentant, penance- doing  ldve.    Nay,  even  in  an  unfallen 
or  angelic  world,  it  would  only  be  innocence  in  the 
shape  of  love,  which* could  earn  the  heavenly  recom- 
pense.   Thus  also  in  our  journey  heavenwards,  it  is  love 
which  takes  evCry  step,  and  love  alone.    It  is  not  the 
sharpness  of  the  austerity  which  merits,  but  the  love. 
It  is  not  the  patience  in  sickness,  or  the  silence  under 
calumny,  or  the  perseverance  in  prayer,  or  the  zeal  of 
apostolic  labour,  which  win  the  crown,  but  just  the  love, 
and  the  love  only  that  is  in  the  patience  and  the  silence 
and  the  prayer  and  the  zeal.     Martyrdom  without  love 
is  unprofitable  before  God.    He  has  Ho  longing  for  any- 
thing but  love.    He  puts  no  price  on  other  things.    His 
taste  is  exclusive.    His  covetousness  is  confined  to  that 
one  thing.     0  if  we  could  be  as  simple  and  as  single  ia 
our  desires  as  God  !   He  only  wants  our  love,  and  more 
of  it,  and  more,  and  more.    Why  should  not  we  also 


WHY  GOD  WISHES  US  TO  LOVE  HIM.  157 

want  one  thing  only,  to  love  Him,  and  to  love  Him, 
more,  and  more,  and  more?  Surely  if  we  prayed  only 
for  that  after  which  He  longs  so  earnestly,  our  prayer 
would  not  wait  for  its  answer  long;  and  then  in  His 
eyes,  and  who  would  wish  to  be  so  in  other  eyes?  we 
6hould  soon  be  like  the  saints. 

We  conclude  from  all  these  considerations,  that  of  the 
/act  that  God  condescends  intensely  to  desire  our  love, 
there  can  be  no  possible  doubt;  and  we  think  it  is  more 
true  to  say  that  this  fact,  that  He  desires  our  love,  is 
the  foundation  of  all  practical  religion,  than  the  equally 
certain  fact  that  He  loves  us.  We  mean  that  our  duties 
and  our  love  flow  more  obviously  from  the  one  than 
from  the  other.  The  one  comes  nearer  to  us  than  the 
other.  But  as  to  the  reason  which  we  are  to  assign  for 
this  desire  on  the  part  of  our  beneficent  Creator,  we  can 
only  say  that  often  in  religion  the  answer  to  one  mystery 
is  another  mystery  greater  than  the  first.  We  can  find 
no  better  answer  than  this,  He  wishes  us  to  love  Him, 
because  He  so  loves  us.  Upon  which  we  are  obliged 
forthwith  to  ask  ourselves  the  further  question,  Why 
does  God  love  us?  And  this  must  be  the  enquiry  for 
the  next  chapter. 

Meanwhile  we  are  not  at  all  disconcerted  with  the 
vagueness  of  our  answer,  nor  with  the  apparently  small 
result  of  our  enquiry.  The  fact  is,  that  religious  truth 
is  always  fruitful  and  enchanting;  and  God  is  our 
truest  enjoyment  even  already  upon  earth;  and  as  we 
shall  enjoy  Him  in  heaven,  yet  never  comprehend  Him, 
so  it  is  life's  greatest  joy  on  earth  to  watch  the  opera- 
tions of  God  and  to  muse  upon  His  wonders,  though 
their  meaning  is  either  only  partially  disclosed  to  us, 
or  perhaps  even  hidden  from  us  altogether.  Oh  is  any 
one  co  dead  in  heart,  so  blighted  iu  mind  and  aspiia- 


158       Vv'iry  god  y/ishes  us  to  love  him. 

tioD,  as  to  be  able  to  look  all  this  divine  love  in  the 
face,  and  not  be  won  by  it  to  better  things  ?     Blessed, 
blessed    Godl      Wonderful    Father!      Compassionate 
Creator  I     This  mystery  of  His  desiring  our  poor  love 
should  of  itself  be  a  lifelong  joy  to  us  in  our  time  of 
pilgrimage.     It  puts  a  new  face  upon  the  world.     All 
things  glow  with  another  light.     A  feeling  of  security 
comes  upon  us,  like  a  gift  from  heaven,  and  wraps  us 
round  ;  and  the  cold  chill  goes  from  our  heart,  and  its 
dark  spots  are  illuminated ;  and  we  want  nothing  more 
now,  nothing.     Earth  has  nothing  to  give,  which  woul.i 
not  be  a  mere  impertinence  after  this  desire  of  Gocl. 
Oar  hearts  are  full.     We  have  no  room  for  more.     This 
desire  of  God  solves  all  the  problems  of  our  inner  life ; 
for  it  at  once  calms  us  in  our  present  lowness,  and  spurs 
us  on  to  higher  things,  and  the  name  of  that  double 
state,  the  calm  and  the  spur, — what  is  it  but  perfection  ? 
God  loves  me — God  desires  my  love.     He  has  asked  for 
it ;  He  covets  it,  He  prizes  it  more  than  I  do  myself! 
I  would  fain  tell  the  poor  trees,  and  the  little  birds  that 
are  roosting,  and  the  patient  beasts  slumbering  in  the 
dewy  grass,  and  the  bright   waters,  and   the    wanton 
winds,  and  the  clouds  as  they  sail  above  me,  and  that 
white  moon,  and  those  flickering  far-off  stars,  that  God 
desires  my  love,  mine,  even  mine !     And  it  is   true, 
infallibly  true.     0  God,  Thou  art  my  God  because  my 
goods  are  nothing  unto  Thee  !     What  shall  I  do?     If  I 
may  not  doubt  this  mystery,  what  can  I  do  but  die  of 
love?     Oh  Thou,  who  in  the  world  above  givest  us  the 
light  of  glory  that  we  may  bear  to  see  Thy  beauty,  give 
us  now  the  strength  of  faith  to  endure  these  revelations 
of  Thy  love. 


ICO 


CHAPTER  II. 


WHY  GOD    LOVES    US. 


Nem'<f  amatorurn  carnalium,  etiamsi  sit  in  hoc  ultra  modnm  in?aiiens, 
sft  ejcaljfcScere  potest  in  amorem  dilectse  sax,  eicut  Deus  effuudaur in 
amorem  auimaruni  aostranun. — 8.  Chrysostom. 

If  the  answer  to  our  first  question,  why  God  wishes 
us  to  love  Him,  only  resulted  in  a  mystery,  we  may  be 
sure  the  answer  to  this  second  question,  why  God  loves 
us,  will  only  bring  out  a  still  greater  mystery.  Never- 
theless we  must  proceed  to  the  discussion  of  it.  Enquiry 
is  more  solid  and  more  fruitful  in  divine  things,  than, 
the  most  complete  and  satisfactory  results  in  human 
sciences. 

The  whole  creation  floats,  as  it  were,  in  the  ocean  of 
God's  almighty  love.  His  love  is  the  cause  of  all 
things  and  of  all  the  conditions  of  all  things,  and  it 
is  their  end  and  rest  as  well.  Had  it  not  been  for  His 
love,  they  never  would  have  existed,  and  were  it  not 
for  His  love  now  they  would  not  be  one  hour  pre- 
served. Love  is  the  reading  of  all  the  riddles  of 
nature,  grace,  and  glory;  and  reprobation  is  practically 
the  pu>itive  refusal  on  the  part  of  the  free  creature 
to  partake  of  the  Creator's  love.  Love  is  the  light  of 
all  dark  mysteries,  the  sublime  consummation  of  all 
hopes,  desires,  and  wisdoms,  and  the  marvellous  inter- 
pretation of  God.  Light  is  not  so  universal  as  love, 
for  love  ia  in  darkness  as  well  as  light.  Life  is  less 
strong  than  love;  for  love  is  the  victory  over  death., 


160  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

and  is  itself  an  immortal  life.  If  it  pleased  God  at  this 
moment  to  destroy  the  air,  the  planet  would  have 
wheeled  but  a  few  leagues  eastward  before  it  would 
have  become  the  home  of  universal  death  and  desolation. 
Myriad  myriads  of  warm  and  joyous  lives  would  have 
been  extinguished  in  one  inarticulate  gasp  of  choking 
agony.  Not  only  would  the  streets  and  fields  have  been 
Btrewn  with  the  suffocated  dead,  but  the  birds  on  the 
wing  would  have  fallen  lifeless  to  the  ground.  The 
deep  blue  waters  of  the  sea  would  not  have  screened 
their  multitudinous  tribes  from  the  energy  of  the  de- 
stroying edict.  The  subterranean  creatures  would  have 
been  found  out  and  stifled  in  the  crevices  of  the  rocks, 
the  black  waters,  or  the  winding  ways  beneath  the 
ground.  Swift  death  would  have  penetrated  through 
the  breathing-holes  of  the  earth  to  the  strange  fish  of 
Egypt's  Artesian  wells,  and  to  the  fishing-birds  of  the 
caverns  of  Laybach  and  Carniola.  Earth's  green  ves- 
ture would  be  unrolled,  and  the  fair  orb  would  revolve 
in  space  an  ugly  mass  of  dull,  discoloured  matter.  Yet 
this  picture  of  ruin  is  but  a  faint  image  of  what  would 
happen  if  God  withdrew  into  His  own  self-sufficient 
glory,  and  called  off  that  immensity  of  gratuitous  lovo 
with  which  He  covers  all  creation.  For  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  sir  would  be  but  a  material  desolation.  It 
would  not  invade  the  vast  kingdoms  of  moral  beauty, 
of  spiritual  life,  of  natural  goodness,  of  infused  holiness, 
of  angelical  intelligence,  or  of  the  beatitude  of  human 
souls.  As  far  as  creation  is  concerned,  God,  as  it  were, 
concentrates  all  His  attributes  into  one,  becomes  only 
one  perfection,  and  that  one  perfection  is  to  us  the  whole 
of  God:  and  it  is  love.  God  is  love,  says  St.  John 
briefly ;  and  after  that,  nothing  more  was  needed  to 
be  said,    He  has  infinite  power,  boundless  wisdom, 


WnY  GOD  LOVES  US.  161 

indescribable  holiness,  but  to  us  the  power,  the  wisdom, 
and  the  holiness  come  simply  in  the  shape  of  love.  Ilia 
justice  is  one  of  His  most  ravishing  beauties,  but  it 
ravishes  us  by  being  such  a  glorious  illumination  of  III! 
love.  What  looks  like  justice  far  off  is  but  a  higher  - 
kind  of  love  when  we  come  near.  To  us  creatures  His 
infinity,  His  immensity,  His  immutability,  His  eternity 
are  simply  love,  infinite,  immense,  immutable,  eternal 
love. 

When  we  proved  God's  desire  of  our  lo7e,  we  at  the 
same  time  proved  undoubtedly  His  love  of  us.  Reason 
r.nd  revelation,  science  and  theology,  nature,  grace,  and 
glory,  alike  establish  the  infallible  truth  that  God  loves 
His  own  creatures,  and  loves  them  as  only  God  can 
love.  The  question  is,  why  He  loves  us ;  and  our  first 
Btep  towards  an  answer  must  be  to  examine  the  charac- 
ter and  degree  of  this  love.  The  nature  of  a  thing  is 
often  the  best  explanation  both  of  its  existence  and  its 
end.     Let  us  see  what  God's  love  of  us  is  like. 

In  the  first  place,  it  passes  all  example.     Wo  have 

nothing  to  measure  it  by,  nothing  to  compare  it  with. 

The  creatures,  which  God  has  created,  furnish  us  with 

ideas  by  which  we  can  imagine  creatures   which   He 

has  not  created.     We  could  not  have  conceived  of  a 

tree,  if  God  had  not  made  one.      But   now   we   can 

imagine  a  tree  which  shall  be  different  from  any  actual 

tree,  either  in  size,  or  in  foliage,  or  in  flower,  or  in 

fiuit,  or  in  the  character  of  its  growth  and  outline.     So 

also  of  an  animal,  or  even  of  a  possible  world.     Whether 

ve  are  unable  to  imagine  any  possible  thing,  which  shall 

be  more  than  a  combination  of  certain  actual  things,  or 

a  variety  of  them,  or  an  excess  of  them,  is  a  question 

which  we  do  not  touch.     God  gives  us  something  to 

build  our  imaginary  creatures  upon,  became  He  ha? 
11    f 


1G2  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

surrounded  us  with  a  countless  variety  of  creatures; 
and  we  can  judge  of  imaginary  things  in  poetry,  paint- 
ing, or  sculpture,  according  to  the  standard  of  nature. 
But  we  hare  no  such  help  in  understanding  God's  love 
of  His  creatures.  It  is  without  parallel,  without  simili- 
tude. It  is  based  upon  His  own  eternal  goodness  which 
we  do  not  understand. 

This  leads  us  to  its  next  feature,  that  it  does  not 
resemble  human  love,  either  in  kind  or  in  degree.  It 
does  not  answer  to  the  description  of  a  creature's  love. 
It  manifests  itself  in  different  ways.  It  cannot  be 
judged  by  the  same  principles.  We  cannot  rise  to  the 
idea  of  it  by  successive  steps  of  greater  or  less  human 
love.  The  ties  of  paternal,  fraternal,  conjugal  affection 
all  express  truths  about  the  divine  love;  but  they  nofc 
only  express  them  in  a  very  imperfect  way;  they  also 
fall  infinitely  short  of  the  real  truth,  of  the  whole  truth. 
If  we  throw  together  all  the  mutual  love  of  the  angels, 
of  which  doubtless  among  the  various  choirs  there  are 
many  nameless  varieties,  if  we  cast  into  one  heap  all 
the  passionate  fidelity  and  heroic  loyalty  and  burning 
sentiment  of  all  the  husbands  and  wives,  parents  and 
children,  brothers  and  sisters,  friends  and  neighbours, 
that  ever  were,  ever  will  be,  or  in  the  vast  expanse  of 
omnipotence  ever  can  be,  our  total  will  be  something 
inconceivably  more  short  of  the  reality  of  God's  love  for 
us,  than  the  drop  is  short  of  the  ocean,  and  the  minute 
ef  eternity.  If  we  multiply  the  same  total  by  all  the 
figures  we  can  think  «f  without  losing  our  heads  in  the 
labyrinths  of  millions  and  billions,  we  shall  not  mend 
matters.  When  we  have  come  to  an  end  we  have  not 
got  the  shadow  of  an  idea  of  the  degree  of  fervour  with 
which  God  loves  us.  And  then  if  we  contrived  to  com- 
prehend the  degree,  where  should  we  be  in  our  reckon- 


WIIY  GOD  LOVES  US.  1G3 

ing?  There  remains  the  fact  that  God's  love  of  us  is  a 
different  kind  of  love  from  any  for  which  we  have  got 
a  name.  O  how  it  gladdens  our  souls  to  think  that 
when  we  shall  have  been  a  million  of  years  in  the  Bosom 
of  our  Heavenly  Father,  we  shall  still  be  sinking  down, 
deeper  and  deeper,  in  that  unknown  sea  of  love,  and  be 
no  nearer  the  bottom  of  its  unfathomable  truth  and 
inexhaustible  delights! 

This  is  our  third  feature  of  it,  that  not  even  a  glori- 
fied soul  can  ever  understand  it.  The  immaculate 
Mother  of  God  at  this  hour  is  almost  as  ignorant  of  it 
as  we  are.  Almost  as  ignorant,  for  there  can  scarcely 
Ye  degrees  in  a  matter  which  is  infinite.  The  gigantic 
intelligence  of  St.  Michael  has  been  Fathoming  the  depths 
of  divine  love  through  countless  cycles  of  revolving  ages, 
longer  far  than  even  those  seemingly  interminable  geolo- 
gical epochs  which  men  of  science  claim,  and  he  has 
reported  no  soundings  yet.  And  still  these  endless 
calculations  are  the  happy  science  of  the  Blest.  Still 
the  saints  on  earth,  in  ardent  contemplation,  work  this 
problem  which  they  know  beforehand  they  shall  never 
solve.  And  we,  who  creep  upon  the  ground,  what 
better  can  we  do  than  bewilder  ourselves  in  these  mazes 
of  celestial  love?  For  we  shall  still  be  learning  to  love 
God  more,  still  learning  to  wonder  more  at  what  He  has 
done  for  us,  and  to  wonder  most  of  all  at  the  nothing 
which  we  do  for  Him.  If  even  they  who  see  God,  can- 
not comprehend  His  love,  what  manner  of  love  must  it 
necessarily  be?  And  yet  it  is  ours,  our  own  posses- 
sion; and  God's  one  desire  is,  by  hourly  influxes  of 
grace,  to  increase  that  which  is  already  incalculable,  to 
enrich  us  with  an  apparently  unspeakable  abundance  of 
that  whose  least  degree  is  beyond  the  science  of  arch- 


364  TOY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

angels,  beyond  the  glory- strengthened  eye  of  the  Mother 
of  God  herself! 

It  is  another  feature  of  this  love,  that  it  seems  so  to 
possess  God  as  to  make  Him  insensible  to  reduplicated 
"wrongs,  and  to  set  one  attribute  against  another.     At 
all  costs  love  must  be  satisfied.    There  is  nothing  like 
God's  love   except   God's  unity.     It  is  the  whole  of 
God.     Mercy,  the  most  exquisite,  tender,  delicate,  sus- 
ceptible mercy,  must  be  risked  by  the  permission  of 
evil ;  and  the  very  risk  is  but  a  more  beautiful  mani- 
festation of  it.     That  choice  perfection  of  the  Most  High, 
His  intolerably  shining,  unspotted,  simple  sanctity,  must 
be  exposed  to  inevitable   outrage   by  the   freedom    of 
created  wills.     Only,  love  must  be  satisfied.     The  most 
stupendous  schemes  of  redemption  shall  seem  to  tax 
the  infinity  of  wisdom,  so  as  to  satisfy  justice,  provided 
only  that  the  satisfaction  be  not  made  at  the  expense  of 
love.     Love  is  the  favourite.     Love  appears — Oh  these 
poor  human  words  I — to  stand  out  from  the  equality  of 
the  divine  perfections.     Yet  even  love,  for  love's  own 
sake,  will  come  down  from  the  eminence  of  its  dignity. 
It  will  take  man's  love  as  a  return  for  itself.     It  will 
consider  itself  paid,   by  a  kind  of  affectionate  fiction. 
It  will  count  that  for  a  return,  which  bears  no  resem- 
blance to  the  thing  to  be  returned,  either  in  kind  or  in 
degree.     The  mutual  love  of  God  and  man  is  truly  a 
friendship,  of  which  the  reciprocity  is  all  on  one  side. 
Compared  to  the  least  fraction  of  God's  enormous  love 
of  us,  what  is  all  the  collective  love  He  receives  from 
angels  and  from  men,  but  as  less  than  the  least  drop  to 
the  boundless  sea  ?     And  yet,  in  the  divine  exaggera- 
tions of  His  creative  goodness,  the  whole  magnificent 
machinery  of  a  thousand  worlds  was  a  cheap  price  to 
pay  for  this. 


TVHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  1C5 

Hence  we  may  well  reckon  as  a  fifth  feature  of  this 
love,  that  its  grandeur  is  a  trial  even  to  the  faith  which 
finds  no  difficulty  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  nor  even 
in  the  mystery  of  the  Undivided  Trinity.  If  we  have 
had  to  work  for  God  as  priests,  have  we  not  found  more 
men  puzzled  and  tempted  by  the  love  of  God  than  by 
any  other  article  of  the  faith?  Indeed  most  of  the 
temptations  against  the  faith,  when  properly  analyzed, 
resolve  themselves  into  temptations  arising  from  the 
seeming  excesses  of  divine  love.  AYe  might  dare  to 
say  that  God  Himself,  in  spite  of  our  daily  prayer, 
leads  us  into  temptation  by  His  incredible  goodness. 
It  is  the  excessive  love  of  the  Incarnation  and  the  Pas- 
sion, which  makes  men  find  it  hard  to  believe  those* 
mysteries.  It  is  the  very  inundation  of  love  with 
which  Mary  is  covered,  which  really  makes  her  a 
s'umbling-block  to  proud  or  ill-established  faith,  or  to 
enquiry  which  has  not  yet  reached  the  strength  of  faith. 
The  Blessed  Sacrament  is  a  difficulty,  only  because  ifc 
is  such  an  exceedingly  beautiful  romance  of  love.  If 
God's  love  had  not  as  it  were  constrained  Him  to  tell 
us  so  many  of  His  incomprehensible  secrets,  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Holy  Trinity  would  have  been  less  fertile 
of  objections.  "We  confess  it  seems  to  us  that  he  who, 
on  reflection,  can  receive  and  embrace  those  two  pro- 
positions, that  God  loves  us,  and  that  God  desires  our 
love,  can  find  nothing  difficult  hereafter  in  the  wonders 
of  theology.  They  exhaust  and  absorb  all  the  possible 
objections  a  finite  intellect  can  make  to  the  incompre- 
hensible dealings  of  its  infinite  Creator.  0  how  often 
in  the  fluent  course  of  prayer  does  not  this  simple  fact 
that  God  is  loving  us,  turn  round  and  face  us,  and  scat- 
ter all  our  thoughts,  and  strike  us  into  'k  deep  silence* 
and  repeat  itself  out  loud  to  us,  and  the  soul  answers, 


1C6  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

not,  and  is  not  asleep  and  yet  is  not  awake,  and  then 
the  truth  passes  on,  and  we  are  left  weak  in  every  limb, 
and  sweetly  weary,  as  if  we  had  been  hard  at  work  for 
hours  upon  some  deep  study  or  toilsome  deed  of  charity! 
We  saw  no  vision  :  only  God  touched  us,  and  we  shrank, 
and  now  are  marvellously  fatigued. 

Another  feature  of  this  love  is  that  it  is  eternal, 
which  is  in  itself  an  inexplicable  mystery.     As  there 
never  was  a  moment  when  God  was  not,  in  all  the 
plenitude  of  His  self-sufficient  majesty,  so  there  was 
never  a  moment  when  He  did  not  love  us.     He  loved 
us  not  only  in  the  gross,  as  His  creatures,  not  only  as 
atoms  in  a  mass,  as  units  in  a  multitude,  all  grouped 
together  and  not  taken  singly.      But  He  loved  us  indi- 
vidually.    He  loved  us  with  all  those  distinctions  and 
individualities  which  make  us   ourselves,  and   prevent 
our  being  any  but  ourselves.     As  the  Eternal  Genera- 
tion of  the  Son  and  the  Eternal  Procession  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  were  in  God  what  are  called  in  theology  neces- 
sary acts  ;  because  without  them  God  would  not  be  Ono 
God  in  Three  Persons;  so  His  eternal  love  of  us  was 
God's  first  free   act.     It  was  the  glorious   liberty   of 
God  spreading  beyond  Himself  in  the  form  of  creative 
love.     What  is  predestination  but  the  determining  of 
this  sweet  liberty  by   almighty   love?     What  is  our 
election  but  the  eternal  embrace  of  our  Creator's  unbe- 
ginninglove?     Ever  since  He  was  God,  and  He  was 
always  God,  He  has  been  caressing  us  in  the  compla- 
cency of  His  delighted  foresight.     We  were  with  Him 
before  ever  the  planets  or  the  stars,  were  made,  before 
angelic  spirit  had  yet  streamed  out  of  nothing,  or  the 
hollow  void  been  bidden  to  build  up  millions  of  round 
worlds  of  ponderous  material  substance.     What  must 
a  love  be  like  which  has  been  eternal  and  immutable? 


TCHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  1CT 

And  is  it  simply  to  be  believed  that  I,  a  speck  in  the 
world,  a  point  in  time,  a  breath  of  being,  fainting  back 
into  my  original  nothingness  every  moment,  only  that 
an  act  of  God's  will  and  influx  keeps  me  in  life  by 
force, — that  I,  most  intellectually  conscious  to  myself 
that  I  have  never  of  myself  done  or  said  one  worthy, 
one  unselfish  thing,  one  thing  that  was  not  vile  and 
mean  ever  since  I  was  born, — that  I,  such  as  I  am,  or 
even  such  as  I  may  hope  to  be,  have  really  been  loved 
by  God  with  an  everlasting  love?  Why  what  mean  all 
those  controversies  about  the  counsels  of  perfection? 
Is  it  possible  that  God's  children  can  be  talking 
together,  to  see  how  much  they  are  obliged  to  do  for 
God,  and  how  little  is  enough  to  save  them?  Yes! 
yes !  eternal  love  allows  even  this,  brooks  even  this, 
and  to  all  appearance  is  content !  If  we  will  not  give, 
God  will  bargain  with  us,  and  buy.  O  inexplicable 
lovel  Thy  doiDgs  are  almost  a  scandal  to  be  put  into 
words  ! 

Once  more.  The  seventh  feature  of  this  love  which 
God  bears  us,  is  that  it  is  in  every  way  worthy  of 
Himself,  ail  the  result  of  His  combined  perfections. 
It  wou!d  be  of  course  an  intolerable  impiety  to  suppose 
the  contrary.  Nay  rather,  it  is  the  most  perfect  of 
His  perfections,  His  attribute  of  predilection,  if  we 
might  dare  so  to  speak.  If  it  be  a  finite  love,  where  is 
its  limit?  If  it  went  to  the  Crucifixion,  if  it  comes 
daily  to  the  Tabernacle,  who  can  say  where  it  will  not 
go,  if  need  should  be?  Jesus  has  more  than  once  told 
His  saints  that  He  would  willingly  be  crucified  over 
again  for  each  separate  soul  of  man.  Where  can  such 
love  stop?  If  it  be  a  love  short  of  immense,  who  has 
ever  exhausted  it?  Who  ever  will  exhaust  it?  Look 
at  it  in  heaven  at  this  moment — oh  that  we  too  were 


168  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

there! — it  is  rolling  like  boundless  silver  oceans  into 
countless  spirits  and  unnumbered  souls.  How  Mary's 
sinless  heart  drinks  in  the  shining  and  abounding 
waters  !  How  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus  seems  to  em- 
brace and  appropriate  the  whole  gracious  inundation  in 
itself !  A  few  years,  and  you  will  be  there  yourself, 
and  still  the  same  vast  flood  of  love.  Ages  will  pass 
uncounted,  and  still  the  fresh  tides  will  roll.  Is  not  this 
an  immensity  of  love?  0  beautiful  gateway  of  death! 
thou  art  a  very  triumphal  arch  for  the  souls  whom  Jesus 
has  redeemed. 

If  His  love  be  mutable,  when  did  it  change?  Is  a 
whole  past  eternity  no  warrant  for  its  perseverance  ? 
Is  not  fidelity  its  badge  and  token,  a  fidelity  which  is 
like  no  created  thing,  although  we  call  it  by  a  human 
name  ? .  If  it  be  not  eternal,  when  did  it  begin,  and 
when  will  it  end?  The  day  of  judgment,  which  will 
be  the  end  of  so  many  things,  will  only  be  the  begin- 
ning of  a  fresh  abundance  of  this  love.  If  it  were  a 
love  less  than  omnipotent,  could  it  have  created  worlds 
could  it  have  assumed  a  created  nature  to  an  uncreated 
Person,  could  it  have  accomplished  that  series  of  mar- 
vels required  in  the  consecration  of  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment ?  Could  it  have  been  unhurt  by  the  coldness  of 
men,  or  unimpaired  by  their  rebellion?  Is  it  not  a 
wise  love  ?  Shall  we  dare  to  say,  even  of  its  excesses 
that  they  are  inconsistent  with  faultless  wisdom  ?  Had 
its  wisdom  been  at  all  less  than  inexhaustible,  could  it 
have  accomplished  the  redemption  of  mankind  as  it  has 
done,  could  it  have  distributed  grace  with  such  pro- 
found and  unerring  decision,  could  it  have  made  the 
complicated  arrangements  of  a  vast  universe  testify  so 
uniformly  of  itself,  could  it  judge  the  world  when  the 
time  shall  come?    Is  it  in  any  way  an  imperfect  love? 


WHY  QOD  LOVES  U3.  1G3 

"Where  does  it  fail?  What  j-urpose  does  it  not  fulfil? 
To  whom  does  it  not  extend  ?  For  what  need  is  it  not 
sufficient  ?  Is  it  an  unholy  love  ?  The  very  thought 
were  blasphemy.  On  the  contrary  it  is  the  very 
highest  expression  of  God's  ineffable  holiness.  Is  it 
not  also  a  benignant  love?  a  merciful  love?  a  just 
love  ?  Is  it  not  a  love  which  directs  the  whole  provi- 
dence of  God,  and  makes  His  absolute  dominion  over 
us  our  most  perfect  freedom  ?  And  finally,  is  it  nob 
its  very  characteristic  that  it  should  be  itself  our  end, 
our  reward,  our  consummate  joy  in  God  ?  Thus  it  is 
the  result  of  His  combined  perfections,  a  sort  of  beau- 
tiful external  parable  of  His  incommunicable  unity. 

But  not  only  is  love  the  preacher  of  God's  unity  ;  it 
expounds  the  Trinity  as  well.  Let  us  confine  ourselves 
to  the  single  act  of  Creation.  The  Eternal  Generation 
of  the  Son  is  produced  by  God's  knowledge  of  Himself. 
The  Eternal  Procession  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  produced 
by  His  love  of  Himself.  The  Father's  knowledge  of 
Himself  produces  a  divine  Person,  coequal,  coeternal, 
consubstantial  with  Himself.  The  love  of  the  Father 
and  the  Son  produces  also  a  divine  Person,  coequal, 
coeternal,  consubstantial  with  the  Other  Two,  from 
whom,  as  from  a  single  principle,  He  everlastingly 
proceeds.  Now  see  how,  with  awful  distinctness,  crea- 
tion shadows  forth  and  adumbrates  this  adorable  and 
surpassing  mystery,  how  the  free  acts  of  God  outside 
Himself  are  shadows  cast  by  the  necessary  acts  within 
Himself!  Creation  is  in  a  sort  a  son  of  God,  a  mighty 
family  of  sons,  expressing  more  or  less  partially  His 
image,  representing  His  various  perfections,  and  all  with 
sufficient  clearness  to  enable  the  apostle  to  say  that  we 
are  without  excuse  if  we  do  not  perceive  the  Invisible  by 
the  things  that  are  seen.    Creation  is  a  knowledge  of 


170  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US, 

God,  a  manifestation  of  Him  given  forth  by  Himself, 
and  which,  when  complete,  He  viewed  with  divine  com- 
placency. But  creation  is  especially  a  knowledge  and 
manifestation  of  God's  love ;  it  is.  His  love  to  us,  and 
our  love  to  Him,  He  created  us  because  He  loved  us, 
and  He  created  us  in  order  that  we  might  love  Him. 
Creation  was  itself  the  external  jubilee  of  that  immense 
perfection,  of  which  the  inward  jubilee  was  the  ever- 
lastingly proceeding  Spirit.  As  the  image  of  God's 
perfections,  Creation  was  the  faint  shadow  of  that  most 
gladdening  mystery,  the  eternal  Generation  of  the  Son: 
and  Scripture  lays  stress  on  the  fact  that  God  produced 
the  worlds  by  His  Son.  As  the  communication  of  His 
love,  and  the  love  of  His  own  glory,  Creation  also  dimly 
pictured  that  unspeakable  necessity  of  the  divine  life, 
the  Eternal  Procession  of  the  Spirit..  We  have  already 
seen  that  Creation  was  only  and  altogether  love.  As 
the  Son  is  produced  by  the  inward  uncreated  knowledge 
which  God  has  of  Himself,  so  is  creation  the  outward 
and  created  knowledge  of  Himself ;  and  as  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  produced  by  the  inward  uncreated  love  of  God, 
go  is  Creation  His  outward  and  created  love.  Creation 
fs  a  mirror  of  His  perfections  to  Himself,  as  well  as  to 
His  creatures  ;  this  must  be  always  borne  in  mind ;  and 
as  He  is  His  own  end,  and  seeks  necessarily  His  own 
glory,  Creation  is  His  love  of  Himself  strongly  and 
eweetly  attaining  its  end  through  His  love  of  His  crea- 
tures and  their  love  of  Him.  Perhaps  all  the  works  of 
God  have  this  mark  of  His  Triune  Majesty  upon  them, 
this  perpetual  forthshadowing  of  the  Generation  of  the 
Son  and  the  Procession  of  the  Spirit,  which  have  been, 
and  are,  the  life  of  God  from  all  eternity.  Nature, 
grace,  and  glory,  the  Incarnation,  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment, and  the  Beatific  Vision,  may  thus  perhaps  all  be 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  171 

imprinted  with  tin's  mark  of  God,  the  emblem,  the  de- 
vice, the  monogram,  of  the  Trinity  in  Unity.  And 
thus,  when  the  Word  has  enlightened  every  man  that 
comes  into  the  world,  and  the  Spirit  has  brought  all 
willing  hearts  to  loving  obedience  and  accepted  sanctity, 
through  the  grace  of  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus,  i\ 
is  mysteriously  written  by  the  apostle,  that  our  Loro 
6hall  deliver  up  the  kingdom  to  God  and  the  Father, 
and  the  Son  also  Himself  shall  be  subject  in  His  human 
nature  unto  Ilioi  that  put  all  things  under  Him,  that 
God  may  be  all  in  all.  The  Father  has  created  us,  the 
Son  redeemed  us,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  sanctified  us ;  and 
when  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit  have  brought  us  from 
our  wanderings,  the  Father  shall  give  Himself  to  us,  and 
then,  as  the  apostle  said  to  Jesus,  It  suffices  us.  Then 
will  His  love  be  perfected,  His  most  dear  will  accom- 
plished, and  His  Creation  crowned. 

The  likeness  of  Creation  to  the  Generation  of  the  Son 
and  the  Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  still  more 
striking,  when  we  come  to  consider  the  real  nature  of 
that  perpetual  and  intimate  conservation  by  which  God 
sustains  and  preserves  all  things.  Creation  and  pre- 
servation are  not  two  different  actions.  They  can  be 
separated  only  in  idea.  The  one  is  th?  going  on  of  the 
other.  It  is  an  opinion  which  has  found  favour  in  the 
schools,  and  which  is  peculiarly  in  harmony  with  the 
language  of  the  ancient  fathers,  that  no  less  an  influx 
of  God  is  required  to  preserve  a  thing  in  being  than  to 
call  it  at  first  out  of  its  original  nothingness.  In  treat- 
ing of  this  question  theologians  necessarily  came  to 
examine  the  real  character  of  the  act  of  Creation. 
Durandus  expressly  says,  u  As  it  is  always  true  in 
divine  things  to  say  that  the  Son  is  ever  being  begotten 
of  the  Father,  so  is  it  truo  to  say  of  the  creature,  as 


172  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

Ions:  as  if;  Exists,  that  it  has  been  created  and  is  beinjj 
created  by  God ;  for  the  creation  of  things  is  the  same 
act  as  the  preservation  of  them."  Scotus  says,  "  A 
thing  may  be  always  said  to  be  being  created,  as  long 
as  it  abides,  because  it  is  always  receiving  its  being  from 
God,"  and  he  quotes  S.  Augustine  as  saying  that*'  with 
respect  to  God  a  creature  is  never  ultimately  made,  but 
is  always  being  made."  Vasquez  declares  that  "  the 
continuous  preservation  of  things  by  God  is  a  true  crea- 
tion out  of  nothing."  Molina  says,  "By  the  same 
influx  of  an  indivisible  action  by  which  God  first  con- 
ferred being  upon  an  angel,  He  also  now  preserves  him, 
and  confers  the  same  being  upon  him  throughout  the 
whole  course  of  time."  Suarez  in  his  metaphysics 
teaches  the  same  doctrine.  Lessius  says,  "  A  created 
thin»  is  nothing  else  than  an  assiduous  creation  and 
actual  production  of  its  being:"  and  Scotus  again  mar- 
vellously says,  "  Created  essence  of  any  kind  is  nothing 
else  than  a  dependence  upon  God."  It  is  needless  to 
point  out  how  this  indivisible  continuity  of  Creation 
adumbrates  the  perpetual  Generation  of  the  Son,  anci 
the  incessant  Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost.* 

»  This  very  interesting  question  of  preservation  is  discossed  by  Lessins  in 
his  third  book  De  Summo  Bono ;  and  then  at  greater  length  in  his  tenta 
book  De  Perfectionibus  Divinis.  In  the  opinion  given  in  the  text  that  crea« 
tures  bear  on  them  the  mark,  not  only  of  a  Creator,  but  of  a  Triune  Creator, 
I  have  ventured  to  differ  from  De  Lugo.  The  whole  subject  is  one  of  great 
interest;  but  I  cannot  do  more  than  advert  to  it  here.  It  Is  common  with 
theologians  to  regard  our  Blessed  Lady  as  a  world  by  herself,  a  sort  of  exem- 
plar and  epitome  of  creation ;  and  the  following  passage  from  F.  Binet's 
Chef-d'-02uvre  de  Dieu  illustrates  the  view  I  have  put  forward  in  the  text. 
Speaking  of  our  Lady's  soul,  he  says,  N'est-ellepas  veritablement  le  miroir  da 
la  M;ijeste'  de  Dieu,  representant  naivement  ce  qui  se  passe  dans  les  splendeurs 
de  l'e'ternit--,  ou  par  une  generation  eternelle  est  engendre  le  Fils  dans  lo 
eein  de  son  Pere,  ou,  par  une  emanation  ineffable,  le  Saint-Esprit  procede, 
du  Pere  et  du  Fils?  Partie  xere.  cap.  5.  sect.  11.— See  also  the  conclusion 
of  S.  Thomas  in  the  45th  question,  vii.  article  of  the  P.  Prima.  In  ratio- 
n;libus  creaturis  est  imago  Trinitatis;  ia  caetmis  vero    creaturis  est  vesti- 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  170 

Such  is  the  love  of  God;  such  its  character  and  its 
degree.     This  is  the  love  He  is  loving  us  with  at  this 
very  moment :  a  love  passing  all  example,  a  love  rising 
above  all  created  loves,  a  love  which  even  a  glorified 
spirit  cannot  understand,  a  love  which  seems  to  govern 
God,  a  love  that  tries  our  faith  from  its  sheer  immensity, 
a  love  which  is  eternal,  and   a  love  which  is  in  every 
way  worthy  of  God  Himself,  and  the  result  of  His  com- 
bined  perfections.      Let  us  pause  to  think.     At  this 
very  moment   God  is  loving  me  with   all   that  love. 
Lord !  I  believe ;  help  Thou  mine  unbelief.      O  what 
then  are  all  things  else  to  me?     Pain  or  ease,  sorrow  or 
joy,  failure  or  success,  the  wrongs  of  my  fellow-creatures 
or  their  praise, — what  should  they  all  be  to  me   but 
matters  of  indifference?     God  loves  me;  now  is  the 
time  to  die. 

Hut  we  have  next  to  seek  for  the  reasons  of  this  love. 
They  must  be  either  on  our  side,  or  on  God's  side,  or  on 
fcoth.     Let  us  examine  our  own  side  first. 

The  first  thing  which  strikes  us  is  that  man  is  in 
liimself  nothingness.  His  bodv  has  been  formed  of  the 
dust  of  the  earth,  and  his  soul  has  been  directly  created 
out  of  nothing  by  God  Himself.  Consequently  we  can 
have  nothing  original  in  us  to  attract  this  love  of  our 
Creator.  Nay,  the  very  act  of  our  creation  showed  that 
His  love  for  us  existed  before  we  did  ourselves.  Our 
very  being  was  because  of  His  love.  This  considera- 
tion alone  would  seem  to  settle  the  question  of  man's 
independent  possession  of  any  title  to  the  love  of  God. 
We  have  simply  nothing  of  our  own,  nothing  but  tho 

ginm  Trinitatis;  in  quantum  in  eis  inveniuntur  aliqua,  quru  redacuntur  in 
Pertonu  Divinas.  Since  writing  the  passage  in  the  text  I  have  found  the 
same  view  in  some  hitherto  unedited  works  of  Rnysbrok,  published  by 
Arnswaldt  at  Hanover,  1848.    The  treatise  is  entitled  fyieyel  du  Stligkcit. 


174  WET  GOD  LOVES  US. 

disgrace  of  our  origin.  There  ia  not  a  gift  of  our  nature 
but,  if  God  loves  it,  He  is  only  loving  what  is  His  own, 
and  which  in  the  first  instance  came  to  us  from  His 
love.  There  can  be  nothing  therefore  in  our  own  being 
to  love  us  for,  when  that  very  being  is  nothing  more 
than  the  effect  of  a  pre-existing  love. 

Moreover,  when  God  had  once  called  us  into  life,  our 
extreme  littleness  seems  a  bar  against  any  claim  to  His 
love,  founded  on  what  we  are  in  ourselves.  We  are 
only  a  speck  even  amidst  rational  creatures.  What  are 
ve  individually?  What  is  our  importance  in  our 
country,  or  even  our  neighbourhood?  What  is  our 
moral  or  our  intellectual  greatness?  We  are  almost  lost 
in  the  number  of  men  who  are  now  living  on  the  earth. 
Our  leaving  it,  which  must  happen  one  day,  will  hardly 
be  perceived.  We  shall  leave  no  gap  behind  us.  We 
;:hall  hardly  want  a  successor ;  for  what  will  there  be  to 
succeed  to  ?  And  if  we  are  mere  atoms  in  the  huge 
mass  of  men  now  living,  what  are  we  compared  to  all 
the  multitudes  of  men  who  have  ever  lived,  or  the  enor- 
mous hosts  who  are  yet  to  live  before  the  judgment- 
day?  And  after  the  judgment-day,  if  God  goes  on 
filling  the  immensity  of  space,  and  the  numberless  orb3 
of  the  nightly  heavens,  with  new  rational  creations, 
new  subjects  of  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus,  more 
angels,  or  more  men,  or  beings  that  shall  be  neither 
angels  nor  men,  we  shall  become  imperceptible  motes 
in  the  great  beams  of  creative  love.*    And  even  now 

*  The  hypothesis  hazarded  here,  and  at  page  333  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament, 
tli at  the  creations  of  angels  and  of  men  were  possibly  the  beginnings  of  crea- 
tions, and  that  other  planets  and  fixed  stars  may  be  hereafter  the  seats  of 
new  creations  of  reasonable  beings,  eludes  some  difficulties  arising  to  the 
doctrine  of  Christ's  Grace  of  Headship  from  previous  or  contemporary  worlds* 
of  such  beings.  Yet  such  an  hypothesis  is  in  nowise  necessary  to  the 
coexistence  of  .that  doctrine  with  any  such  actual  worlds.    I  have  since 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  U3.  173 

there  are  the  angels,  and  who  shall  tell  their  number? 
For  we  know  that  raultitudinousness  is  one  peculiar 
magnificence  of  their  glorious  choirs.  It  is  even  said, 
by  some,  that  the  lowest  choir,  which  is  the  least  in 
number,  far  outnumbers  all  the  men  that  shall  have 
been  born  from  Adam  to  the  day  of  doom.  What  have 
we  to  present  to  the  eye  of  our  Creator  but  an  almost 
indescribable  insignificance  ? 

If  there  is  anything  positive  about  us  at  all,  it  is  our 
badness.  To  our  nothingness  we  have  contrived  to  add 
rebellion.  That  really  is  something  of  our  own.  We 
have  thoroughly  mastered  with  our  understandings  the 
difference  between  right  and  wrong,  and  have  deliber- 
ately chosen  the  last  and  rejected  the  first.  We  have 
looked  God's  commandments  in  the  face,  and  then  broken 
them.  Grace  has  come  to  us  with  quite  a  sensible  heat 
and  force,  and  we  have  summoned  up  our  power  of  will, 
and  resisted  it.  The  Holy  Ghost  has  spoken,  and  we 
have  listened,  and  then  returned  an  answer  in  the  nega- 
tive. Conscience  has  proclaimed  the  rights  of  duty,  and 
without  so  much  as  taking  the  trouble  to  deny  the  asser- 
tion, we  have  refused  obedience  to  the  mandate.  We 
have  looked  calmly  at  eternal  punishment,  we  hava 
clearly  perceived  that  nothing  short  of  an  omnipotence 

learned  that  in  Germany  H.  Steffern  has  suggested  the  same  idea  in  his 
Christl.  Religions-Philosophie,  and  Hegel  seems  to  say  something  very  like 
it.  The  reader  will  understand  at  once,  how  intimately  this  hypothesis  is 
connected  with  the  Scotist  view  of  the  Incarnation.  Hence  that  view  has 
also  come  up  again  among  German  protestants.  Kurz  maintained  it  in  the 
earlier  editions  of  his  Exposition  of  the  Biblical  Cosmology,  but  rejected  it  in 
his  third  edition,  evidently  from  a  total  misconception  of  it.  It  is  upheld 
by  Liebner,  Dorner,  Martcnsen,  and  Lange,  and  denied  by  Thomasius,  and 
Julius  Muiler,  I  venture  to  think  that  the  more  philosophical  a  man's  idea 
of  creation  becomes,  the  more  he  will  incline  to  the  Scotist  view.  It  is 
remarkable  that  the  revival  of  this  view  in  German  protestant  theology 
6hou:d  be  contemporary  with  a  moro  enlarged  aud  systematic  study  of 
nature. 


J 


176  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

of  anger  has  been  required  for  the  creation  of  tliosa 
unutterable  tortures,  and  then  for  an  hour  of  sin  we 
have  braved  it  all.  Time  after  time  we  have  put  God 
in  one  scale,  and  some  creature  in  the  other,  and  then 
of  our  own  will  have  pressed  down  the  scale,  and 
made  the  creature  outweigh  the  Creator.  We  have 
neglected  God  and  outraged  Him  also.  We  have  at 
once  disobeyed  Him  and  forgotten  Him.  We  have 
both  ignored  Him  and  yet  have  insulted  Him  as  well. 
All  this  is  our  own.  There  is  no  one  to  share  it  with 
us.  Truly  we  are  wonderful  creatures,  to  have  done  so 
much  in  so  short  a  time,  to  be  able  indeed  to  do  such 
things  at  all.  Yet  are  we  making  out  a  very  promising 
case  for  a  title  to  eternal  love  ? 

We  have  said,  there  was  no  one  to  share  these  misera- 
ble prerogatives  with  us.     It  is  true,  and  yet  it  is  not 
true  either.     For  think  awhile.     Has  not  Jesus  at  least 
offered  to  share  them  ?     There  have  been  times  when 
their  real  nature,  their  awful  wretchedness,  came  home 
to  us,  and  a  world  would  have  been  a  cheap  payment  to 
get  rid  of  the  guilty  past.     To  be  a  door-keeper  in  the 
house  of  God  seemed  then  an  infinitely  better  lot  than  a 
thousand  years  amid  the  splendours  of  ungodliness.  And 
Jesus  came  to  us  in  one  of  those  times.  He  offered  to  take 
all  this  horrible  accumulation  of  rebellion  and  self-will, 
and  to  make  it  His  own,  and  to  give  His  sufferings  for 
it,  and  to  pay  His  blood  to  ransom  us  from  the  intolera- 
ble debt  of  fire,  which  we  had  wilfully  and  scornfully 
incurred.     And  we  were  too  glad  to  accept  an  offer  of 
such  almost  fabulous  love.     And  then  in  a  little  while, 
leaving  all  that  old  debt  on  Him,  we  left  His  service 
also.    We  took  back  our  rights ;  we  re-entered  upon 
the  exercise  of  our  unhappy  prerogatives ;  and  trampling 
mercy  underfoot  now,  in  addition  to  the  other  divine 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  177 

perfections  we  had  outraged  before,  we  once  more 
earned  for  ourselves  an  endless  death,  and  preferred  to 
the  holy  love  of  God  the  blackness  of  everlasting  fire. 
Anil  perhaps  this  process  has  been  repeated  a  score  of 
times,  in  our  short  lives,  or  a  score  of  scores  of  times. 
And  certainly  such  conduct  is  all  our  own.  An  a: 
never  had  the  opportunity  given  him  of  such  new  choice 
of  evil.  Here  is  the  first  time  in  which  we  come  in  siorht 
of  anything  which  belongs  undoubtedly  to  ourselves  as 
men  ;  and  it  were  strange  indeed  if  such  excess  of  guilt 
should  be  the  blissful  cause  of  such  exceeding  love. 

Eut  if,  instead  of  being  such  quite  incredible  sinners, 
we  were  equal  both  in  our  faculties  and  our  innocence 
to  the  highest  angels,  should  we  be  much  better  able  to 
establish  our  right  and  title  to  the  inestimable  love  of 
God?  What  can  we  do  for  God?  What  can  we  add 
to  Him?  What  can  we  give  Him,  which  He  docs  not 
possess  already,  and  possess  to  an  infinite  extent  and 
with  an  infinite  enjoyment?  Is  there  0:1  e  of  His  per- 
fections to  which  we  could  put  a  heightening  touch,  an 
additional  beauty  ?  Could  we  by  any  possible  contribu- 
tion of  ours  swell  the  overflowing  ocean  of  His  essential 
glory?  Is  there  a  little  joy,  however  little,  which  we 
can  give  Him,  and  which  is  not  His  already?  We 
could  not  even  be  of  any  real  help  to  Him  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  world.  If  He  condescended  to  make  use  of 
our  ministrations  we  should  only  add  to  the  weight  on 
(he  shoulder  of  His  omnipotence,  not  take  anything  from 
it.  For  He  would  have  to  concur  to  every  act  we  did, 
to  every  movement  we  made.  He  would  have  actively 
to  fill  our  nothingness  with  life,  to  fortify  our  feebleness 
with  strength,  to  illuminate  our  darkness  with  His  light* 
The  most  magnificent  of  the  angels  is  no  help  to  God. 

On  the  contrary,  if  wo  may  use  the  word,  he  is  rather  a 
12       f 


17S  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

drain  upon  Him.  For  the  creature  thirsts  for  the  influx 
of  the  Creator,  and  the  more  capacious  his  nature  the 
more  vast  are  his  needs,  to  be  supplied  from  the  undi- 
minished plenitude  of  God.  When  God  lets  His  crea- 
tures work  for  Him,  it  is  rather  that  they  make  more 
work  for  Him  to  do,  as  children  do  when  they  pretend 
to  help  their  father.  It  is  a  condescension,  an  honour- 
ing of  the  creature,  the  clearest  proof  of  God's  exceeding 
love  for  us.  Thus  though  St.  Michael's  brightness  daz- 
zles us,  while  we  look  at  it,  until  we  gaze  upon  it 
through  the  many- coloured  veil  of  a  creature's  necessary 
imperfections,  we  can  see  even  in  him  no  right  or  title 
to  his  Creator's  love,  except  the  gifts  which  that  love 
placed  there  first  of  all.  But  we  are  not  St.  Michael. 
We  are  not  magnificent  angels.  We  are  but  the  most 
miserable  of  men,  relapsed  pinners,  even  now  perhaps 
only  half  repentant,  with  a  most  cowardly  repentance. 

If  then  we  must  judge  of  ourselves  by  human  rather 
than  angelic  principles,  let  us  apply  these  human 
measures  to  our  actual  service  of  our  Maker.  What  is 
our  service  of  God  like?  What  is  its  worth,  what  its 
true  character  ?  Let  us  for  a  moment  put  aside  from 
God  the  consideration  that  He  is  God.  He  is  our 
Father,  our  Master,  our  Benefactor,  our  fondly  loving 
Friend.  In  His  immense  longevity  He  has  been  busy 
doing  us  good.  It  seems  to  have  been  His  one  occupa- 
tion. He  lived  for  us.  We  were  His  end.  Words 
cannot  tell  the  amount  of  self-sacrifice  He  has  made  for 
us.  He  slew  an  only  Son  to  keep  us  out  of  harm. 
Figures  could  not  put  down  the  number  of  graces  He 
lias  given  and  is  hourly  giving  to  us.  His  life  will  be 
prolonged,  not  for  His  own  sake,  but  for  ours,  some 
jnore  centuries,  in  order  that  He  may  go  on  and  com- 
plete the  &um  of  His  prodigious  benefactions.    It  is  not 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  179 

easy  to  tell  what  lie  has  been  to  us.  We  feel  that  we 
do  not  half  know  it  ourselves.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
this  ancient  earth  has  never  seen  a  Father  like  this 
Father,  or  a  master  half  so  kind  or  half  so  like  an  equal, 
or  a  Benefactor  more  prodigal  or  more  self-forgetting, 
or  a  Friend  more  ardently  romantic  in  his  attachment. 
And  we  have  all  this  love  to  return.  And  how  do  wa 
return  it  ?  A  certain  amount  of  pious  feeling,  a  scant 
obedience  of  a  few  easy  commandments,  a  respect  for 
His  expressed  wishes  when  they  do  not  too  much  clash 
with  our  own  interests,  a  fluctuating  quantity  of  prayer 
and  of  thanksgiving,  but  which  engrosses  us  so  little 
that  we  are  generally  thinking  of  something  else  all  the 
time.  This  is  what  we  do  for  Him  in  a  very  irregular 
and  perfunctory  kind  of  way.  And  if  we  ourselves 
were  goodnatured  human  fathers,  should  we  be  satisfied 
if  our  sons  did  as  much  for  us  as  we  do  for  God,  and  no 
more  ?  If  a  friend  of  seven  years  standing  repaid  thus 
our  love  and  loyalty,  should  we  not  think  his  friendship 
and  his  service  almost  insulting?  Should  we  not  think 
it  so  cold,  so  fitful,  so  splf-seeking,  so  unjust,  that, 
although  charity  hopes  all  things  and  believes  all  things, 
we  should  consider  ourselves  justified  in  saying  that  it 
would  be  utterly  impossible,  however  disposed  we  might 
be  to  waive  our  rights  and  to  stretch  a  point,  to  put 
a  favourable  construction  upon  the  conduct  of  our 
friend  ? 

But  all  the  while  it  is  God,  not  merely  a  friend  and 
benefactor,  but  God  whom  we  are  thus  treating,  with 
His  ten  thousand  other  ties  upon  us,  and  His  incompa- 
rably greater  tenderness,  and  His  absolutely  eternal 
love  !  0  is  it  not  humiliating  to  think  of  these  things  ? 
But  we  have  not  yet  drunk  our  vileness  to  its  dregs. 
'While  we  are  thus  abusing  the  loDg-sufferiDg  of  God  by 


180  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US» 

our  ungraceful  slackness,  by  our  injurious  coldness,  ancr 
by  our  insulting  scantiness  of  service,  we  have  the 
effrontery  to  persuade  ourselves  that  we  are  doing  some 
great  thing  for  Him,  that  we  are  almost  laying  Him 
under  an  obligation  to  us,  and  that  any  one  who  urges 
upon  us  a  higher  perfection  is  a  troublesome  dreamer,  who 
is  far  from  doing  justice  to  the  reasonable  and  moderate 
profession  of  piety  on  which  we  pride  ourselves.  And 
all  this  to  God,  remembering  who  God  is  !  And  all 
this  after  all  He  has  done  for  us,  and  is  doing  now ! 
And  all  this,  when  we  have  so  much  of  the  criminal 
past  to  undo,  so  much  lost  time  to  make  up,  so  much 
of  actual  rebellion  to  repair  and  expiate!  Surely  it 
was  not  too  much  to  say  that  even  on  human  princi- 
ples our  very  service  of  God  is  almost  insulting,  our 
very  reparations  a  new  affront.  If  they  be  not  so,  to 
what  is  it  owinsj  but  to  the  unlimited  forbearance  of 
Him  upon  whose  paternal  love  experience  teaches  us  we 
can  with  so  much  security  presume  ? 

But  if  God  is  His  own  end,  and  by  a  sort  of  necessity 
cannot  but  seek  His  own  glory  in  all  things,  it  would 
seem  as  if  to  be  like  God  would  bo  a  legitimate  title  to 
His  love.  He  will  look  with  complacency  upon  that 
which  reflects  Himself.  Still  if  even  on  this  account 
God  loved  men,  it  would  be  a  reason  rather  on  His 
side  than  on  our  own.  Nevertheless  let  us  see  what 
the  real  truth  of  the  matter  is.  We  are  the  contra- 
dictory of  God  in  almost  every  respect.  To  say  nothing 
of  the  fluiteness  and  feebleness  belonging  to  us  as 
creatures,  our  moral  qualities  present  a  more  fearful 
dissimilarity  from  His  holiness  and  perfection.  We  are 
deficient,  in  the  very  virtues,  which  we  are  able  to 
acquire,  and  for  the  acquisition  of  which  He  has  given 
w  special  aids  of  grace.    Nay,  when  He  has  summed 


wur  GOD  LOVES  US.  181 

Up  all  that  shall  entitle  us  to  the  forgiveness  or  our  sins, 
all  that  shall  win  for  us  the  very  kindness  and  favour 
which  we  seek  from  Him,  into  one  simple  precept,  and 
told  us  to  forgive  if  we  would  be  forgiven,  and  to  do  to 
others  as  we  would  He,  as  well  as  they,  should  do  to 
us,  our  corrupt  nature  finds  the  simple  lesson  an  infinite- 
hardship  in  practice.     Times  have  been,  alas  !  who  will 
say  those  times  are  not  now?  when  the  world's  sin3 
have  so  sickened  God  that  He  has  repented,  immutable 
though  lie  be,  that  He  ever  created  man.     And  now 
what  in  all  the  world  does  He  behold  like  Himself  ? 
Nothing  but  the  grace  He  has  planted  there,  like  an 
ailing  exotic  in  an  uncongenial  soil,  stunted  in  growth, 
with  a   few  pale   leaves   scarcely   hanging   on  to   its 
boughs,    flowering   hardly  ever,  and  only  under  great 
forcing  heat,  and  bearing  fruit  in  this  climate  never. 
Is   that    the  heavenly  tree?     "Who  would  know  it  in 
such  woful  plight?     Of  a  truth  God  has  much  to  bear 
not  to  be  downright  offended  with  the  grace  He  sees  on 
earth,  to  say  little  of  the  nature  there,  and  still  less  of 
the  prolific  sin.     We  know  our  own  hearts  far  too  well: 
and  can  we   believe   that    God   can   look   down  from 
heaven,  and  see  Himself  reflected  there?     Earth  has 
but  one  consolation.   Truly  there  is  something  on  man's 
side,  something  which  is  man's  own,  on  which  God's 
eye  can  rest,  and  love  not  only  what  it  sees,  but  be  so 
ravished  thereby,  that  it  will  pour  itself  out  in  floods,  and 
run  over,  and  deluge  the  universe  with  light  and  loveli- 
ness; and  that  eight  which  is  man's  own,  though  it  is 
not    in   man,   is  ■  the   Blessed   Sacrament,   where   the 
patience  of  God  securely  rests  its  foot,  and  the  divino 
anger  reposes,  and  sleeps  sweetly,  and  wakes  not  to 
remember  its  errand  of  vindictive  purity. 

There  is  one  characteristic  of  man  which  especially 


182  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

precludes  our  finding  in  him  the  reasons  of  God's  amaz- 
ing love.     It  is  not  exactly  sin.     It  is  not  precisely  any 
one  of  the  imperfections  to  which  as  a  finite  being  he  is 
subject.     It  is   rather   the   combined  result  of  all  his 
imperfections.        He   is    characterized    by    meanness. 
"When  we  do  really  great  things,  we  fail  in  some  little 
point  of  them.     There  is  a  flaw  of  meanness  running 
across  our  generosity,  and  debasing  every  one  of  its 
products.     Our  love  and  hatred,  our  praise  and  blame, 
our  anger  and  our  good  humour,  have  all  got  the  same 
crack  in  them,  this  flaw  of  meanness.     With  ourselves, 
what  is  self-deceit  but  meanness,  what  is  slavery  to 
bodily  comforts,  what  greediness  at  meals,  what  rude- 
ness in  manners,  what  personal  vanity,  what  a  hundred 
idle   extravagances   of  self-praise   in   which  we  daily 
indulge,  what  the  inexhaustible  pettiness  of  wounded 
feeling,   but  meanness,  downright  meanness?     In  our 
intercourse  with  others,   what  is  lying  but  meanness, 
what   are   pretence,  selfishness,   irritability,  and  more 
than  half  the  world's  conventions,  but  meanness,  syste- 
matized meanness  ?     In  our  relations  with  God,  what 
are  lukewarmness,  and  hypocrisy,  and  self-righteous- 
ness, but  meanness ;  what  is  venial  sin  but  miserable 
meanness?     Many  a   man,  who  has  found  it  hard  to 
hate  himself,  when  he  looked  only  at  his  sins,  has  found 
the  task  much  easier  when  he  had  the  courage  to  hold 
close  to  his  eyes  for  a  good   long    while   the   faithful 
picture  of  his  incredible  meanness.     What  a  piercing, 
penetrating  vision  it  is,  running  all  through  us  with  a 
cold  sharpness,  when  grace  lets  us  see  how  low  and  vile, 
how  base  and  loathsome,  how  little  and  how  sneaking — 
forgive  the  word,  we  cannot  find  another — we   are   in 
everything.     Everybody  seems   so  good,  except   our- 
selves 5  and  we,  0  so  intolerably  hateful,  so  u^ly,  so 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  183 

repulsive,  such  a  burden  to  ourselves!  And  if  this  can 
be  made  plain  to  our  dull,  gross  sight,  what  must  it  be 
to  the  clear  penetration  of  the  All-holy  Majesty  of  God  ? 
But  surely  it  is  useless  going  on.  We  have  doubt- 
less by  tliis  time  lost  sight  of  all  claims  to  love,  which 
we  might  lave  fancied  we  had  when  we  started.  It  is 
plain  that  the  reasons  for  God's  love  of  man  are  not 
at  all  to  be  found  on  our  side,  and  therefore  they  must 
be  on  the  side  of  God.  If  any  truth  in  the  world  is 
established,  this  is.  Certainly  the  extremity  of  our 
lowness  may  be  the  measure  of  the  height  of  God?s 
love,  but  it  cannot  furnish  us  with  the  reason  of  it. 
We  are  often  tempted,  when  reflecting  on  these  matters, 
to  say  shortly  that  God  loves  us  because  we  are  60 
peculiarly  unloveable.  This  may  do  well  enough  for 
a  paradox  in  the  pulpit  to  strike  sleepy  auditors ;  but 
we  must  go  deeper  down  than  this  when  we  read  or 
meditate. 

Now  every  one  of  the  reasons  for  God's  loving  us 
being  on  His  side,  not  on  ours,  is  it  not  remarkable  that 
in  our  service  of  God  we  should  feel  as  if  it  were  a 
bargain  between  two  more  or  less  equal  parties,  and 
tha*-,  if  we  did  our  share,  the  other  would  be  held  to  do 
his  ?  We  do  not  at  all  realize  the  spiritual  life  as  an 
intercourse  where  all  the  duty  is  on  one  side,  and  all 
the  liberality  on  the  other.  Yet  surely  it  must  be  so.  If 
certain  things  are  due  to  us  as  creatures,  when  once  we 
have  been  created,  so  that  God  would  not  be  God,  if  He 
did  not  give  them,  yet  that  we  were  created  at  all  was 
an  immense  gratuitous  love.  If  He  condescends  to 
make  a  covenant  with  us,  yet  it  is  of  His  own  free  love 
that  He  stoops  to  bind  Himself;  and  again  love,  eternal 
love,  must  first  have  created  us,  before  we  could  exist  to 
be  parties  to  a  covenant.  So  that  all  is  love.  The  analysis 


184  WI1Y  GOD  LOVES  US. 

of  creation  resolves  itself  simply  into  love.  Moreover 
what  would  become  of  us,  if  God  gave  us  nothing  but 
our  due,  or  if  He  kept  His  munificence  within  the 
limits  of  His  strict  covenant?  Is  not  His  love  breath- 
ing out  everywhere,  and  breaking  down  our  pride  into 
humility,  as  the  summer  rain  beats  down  the  fragile 
flower,  while  we  are  weighing  with  minutest  scales  each 
ounce,  and  drachm,  and  scruple,  of  the  miserable  alloy 
with  which  we  are  paying  Him  under  the  sweet-sound- 
ing name  of  love  ? 

So  far  then  is  clear,  that  all  the  reasons  for  God's 
love  of  us  are  to  be  found  exclusively  on  His  side.  No 
reasons  whatever  exist  on  ours.  It  is  still  a  further 
enquiry  what  these  reasons  are ;  and  one  to  which  we 
must  now  betake  ourselves.  Alas !  with  our  puny 
minds  it  is  a  hopeless  inquisition  to  search  through  the 
vast  recesses  of  the  Divine  Nature  to  find  the  reasons 
of  God's  love.  God  Himself  is  love,  simple  love;  and 
we  may  well  suppose  that  if  we  might  question  each 
one  of  His  perfections,  the  answer  from  them  all  would 
still  be  love.  We  are  so  sure  of  this  that  we  do  not 
anticipate  any  difficulty.  Yet  when  we  come  to  make 
the  trial,  the  results  are  not  altogether  according  to  our 
expectations. 

There  are  few  of  God's  attributes  more  beautiful  or 
more  adorable  than  His  justice.  There  is  no  justice 
like  His,  for  it  is  founded  on  His  own  divine  nature, 
not  on  any  obligations  by  which  He  is  bound.  Some 
of  the  saints  have  had  a  special  devotion  to  His  justice, 
and  have  made  it  in  a  peculiar  manner  the  subject  of 
their  contemplations.  An  intelligent  creature  would 
rather  be  in  the  hands  of  God's  justice,  than  at  the 
mercy  of  the  most  loving  of  his  fellow-creatures.  The 
apostle  tells  us  that  the  acceptance  of  our  contrition  and 


TVIIY  GOD  LOVES  us.  183 

{he  forgiveness  of  our  sins  depends  upon  God's  justice. 
His  distribution  of  the  gifts  of  nature,  grace,  and  glory, 
is  the  masterpiece  of  His  justice,  which  alone  and  of 
itself  could  fill  us  with  gladness  and  wonder  for  a  wholo 
eternity.  His  promises  are  the  children  of  His  justice, 
and  His  fidelity  to  them  is  His  exercise  of  that  most 
royal  attribute.  It  is  because  His  love  is  so  great  a 
love,  that  His  justice  is  so  perfect  and  so  pure.  His 
punishments  even  are  at  once  magnificent  to  look  at,  yet 
most  dreadful  to  endure,  because  of  tho  extremity  of 
their  unalterable  and  comprehensive  and  truthful  justice. 
Even  the  vengeance  of  our  God  is  a  subject  which  love 
trembles  to  contemplate,  but  from  which  it  will  not  turn 
away.  His  justice  moreover,  even  in  the  acceptance  of 
our  works,  is  a  justice  due  to  His  own  perfections  rather 
i  to  the  efforts  of  our  misery ;  for  what  He  receives 
from  us  is  much  more  His  own  than  ours.  And  is 
there  a  sicjht  more  exalting  or  more  affecting  amid  all 
the  wonders  of  theology,  than  to  see  the  beautiful,  the 
faultless  rigour  of  divine  justice  satisfied  to  its  utmost 
demand,  its  enormous  and  most  holy  requirements  p^i .1 
in  full,  and  its  dread  loveliness  and  majestic  sternness 
worshipped  with  an  equal  worship,  by  the  Precious 
Blood  and  the  mysterious  Passion  of  our  Blessed  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  God  and  Man?  He  has 
hardly  begun  to  know  God  who  has  not  addicted  him- 
self, with  humility  and  fear,  his  mind  hushed  and 
his  heart  in  his  hand,  to  the  study  of  God's  tremendous 
justice.  But  is  it  there  that  we  can  look  for  the  reason 
>f  His  love?  Was  our  creation  a  debt  of  justice  due 
to  our  original  justice?  Has  our  use  of  tho  gifts  of 
nature,  or  our  correspondence  to  the  calls  of  grace,  been 
such,  that  we  dare  to  call  on  God  to  come  and  note  it 
with  all  His  justice,  and  pay  it  according  to  the  rigour 


186  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

of  its  merits  ?  Listen  to  the  sweet  lamentation  that 
issues  evermore  from  the  souls  of  purgatory  through  the 
breathing-places  of  the  Church  on  earth — is  it  not  more 
true  ?  0  Lord,  if  Thou  shalt  be  extreme  to  mark  what 
is  done  amiss,  Lord  !  who  shall  abide  it  ?  Of  a  truth 
we  must  be  well  clothed  with  the  grace  and  justice  of 
Jesus,  before  we  shall  dare  to  say  with  Job  of  old,  Let 
Him  weigh  me  in  the  balance  of  His  justice.  Surely  if 
justice  alone  were  to  be  concerned,  we  should  look  for 
punishment  rather  than  for  love. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  a  succession  of  holy  men 
were  raised  up  in  France,  who  were  drawn  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  honour  with  a  peculiar  intensity  and  devotion 
the  sanctity  of  God,  and  by  the  same  unerring  instincts 
of  grace  they  were  led  to  couple  with  this  devotion  a 
special  attraction  to  the  spirit  of  the  priesthood  of  Jesus. 
Let  us  approach  this  attribute  of  sanctity,  and  see  if 
we  can  find  there  the  reason  for  God's  exceeding  love 
of  creatures.  God  is  infinite  holiness,  because  He  is 
essential  purity.  Who  can  stand  before  the  blaze  of 
such  a  blinding  light  ?  He  is  holy,  because  the  Divine 
Essence  is  the  root  and  fountain  of  all  holiness.  He  is 
holy  because  He  is  the  rule,  the  model,  the  exemplar  of 
all  holiness.  He  is  holy,  because  He  is  the  object  of  all 
holiness,  which  can  be  nothing  else  than  love  of  God 
and  union  with  Him.  He  is  holy,  because  He  is  the 
principle  of  all  holiness,  inasmuch  as  He  infuses  it  into 
angels  and  men,  and  as  He  is  the  last  end  to  which  all 
their  holiness  is  inevitably  directed.  He  is  infinitely 
holy,  because  He  is  infinitely  loveable;  and  as  all 
holiness  consists  in  the  love  of  God,  so  God's  holiness 
consists  in  the  love  of  Himself.  Tims,  and  what  an 
adorable  mystery  it  is!  the  infinite  purity  of  God  is 
simply  His  self-love.    We  know  not  if  a  creature  can 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  1ST 

gain  a  higher  idea  of  God  than  is  given  out  by  this  stu- 
pendous truth. 

But  let  us  suppose  that  we  are  ever  so  holy,  how 
will  this  created  holiness  stand  by  the  side  of  that  of 
God  ?     lie  is  holy  in  Himself,  and  of  Himself,  holy  in 
essence,  which  it  is  impossible  for  a  creature  to  be.     To 
no  creature,  says  theology,  can  it  be  natural  to  be  tho 
Son  of  God,  to  be  impeccable,  to  have  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  to  see  the  Divine  Nature.     Our  holiness  consists  in 
gifts  gratuitously  superadded  to  the  feebleness  and  im- 
possibilities of  our  finite  nature.     The  holiness  of  God 
is  substantial,  His  own  very  substance ;  ours  is  but  a 
quality  and  an  accessary,  an  illumination  of  mind  and 
impulse  of  will  imparted  to  us  by   Himself.     God  is 
holy  infinitely,  both  in  intensity  and  in  extent.    Whereas 
we  have  alas!    no  words  low   enough  to  express   tho 
extreme   littleness,    the   deplorable    languor,  the   soon 
exhausted  capacity,  of  our  brightest  and  most  burning 
holiness.     The  holiness  of  God   can  neither  grow  nor 
be  diminished.     It  cannot  grow,  because  it  is  already 
infinite.     It   cannot   be  diminished,  because  it  is  His 
Essence.     Ours  is  but  a  speck,  whose  very  nature,  hope, 
and  effort  it  is  to  grow.     The  holiness  of  Mary  might 
grow  for  centuries,  with  tenfold  the  rapidity  that  her 
vast  merits  grew  on  earth,  and  at  the  end  she  would  be 
as  little  near  the  holiness  of  God  as  she  is  now.     God's 
sanctity  is  eternal,  ours  but  of  a  year  or  two ;  perhaps 
it  began  quite  late  in  life.     God's  sanctity  is  unintelligi- 
ble from  its  excess  of  purity  and  its  depths  of  unspotted 
light;  ours  alas!  a  fellow-creature  could   see  through 
and  appreciate  in  less  than  half  an  hour.     The  holiness 
of  God  is  ineffably  fruitful ;  for  it  is  the  cause  which 
originates,  preserves,  sets  the  example,  and  gives  the 
aim,  to  all  created  holiness  whatsoever.     Ours  is  fruitful 


183  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

too ;  for  holiness,  as  such,  must  be  fruitful :  but  how 
little  have  we  done,  how  many  souls  have  we  taught  to 
know  God  and  to  love  Him?  If  the  scandal  and  edifi- 
cation we  have  given  were  put  into  the  scales,  which 
would  weigh  down  the  other  ? 

All  this  is  on  the  supposition  that  we  are  as  holy  as 
we  might  be.  But  we  are  not  so.  We  are  hardly 
holy  at  all.  And  knowing  ourselves  to  be  what  we 
are,  is  it  possible  for  us  to  conceive  that  infinite  sanc- 
tity bade  love  create  us  out  of  nothing,  because  it  was 
so  enamoured  of  what  it  foresaw  we  should  become? 
The  holiness  of  God  has  no  necessary  respect  to  crea- 
tures, as  His  mercy  has;  and  yet,  strange  to  sayl  it 
is  this  seemingly  most  inimitable  of  all  His  attri- 
butes, which  is  expressly  put  before  us  as  the  object 
of  our  imitation.  "We  are  to  be  holy  because  God  is 
holy,  and  perfe-jt  even  as  our  heavenly  Father  is 
perfect.  Do  we  then  so  represent  and  reflect  this 
sanctity  of  Gocl,  as  to  become  the  object  of  such  exu- 
berant affection?  If  it  were  only  to  God's  holiness 
that  we  might  appeal,  should  we  expect  to  find  there 
the  reason  of  His  love  ?  Nay,  if  we  had  not  truer 
views  of  God's  equality,  could  we  not  more  easily  fancy 
omnipotent  love  required  to  hinder  infinite  holiness 
from  turning  away  from  us  in  displeasure  and  aver- 
sion? What  did  David  mean  when  ho  said  in  the 
eighty.fifth  psalm,  first  of  all,  Incline  Thine  ear,  0  Lord, 
and  hear  me,  for  I  am  needy  and  poor,  and  then, 
Preserve  my  soul  for  I  am  holy  ?  He  was  a  man 
after  God's  heart :  but  what  manner  of  men  are  we  ? 
Yet,  while  he  was  pleading  his  own  holiness,*  it  was 
tot  to  the  holiness  of  God  he  was  appealing ;  for  he  adds, 

*  Many  commentators  suppose  luni  to  allude  to  his  consecration  as  king> 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  189 

For  Thou,  0  Lord,  art  sweet  and  mild,  and  plenteous 
m  mercy  to  all  that  call  upon  Thee. 

Is  it  the  divine  beauty  which  is  so  in  love  with  us 
miserable  creatures?  Yefc  how  shall  we  search  the 
unsearchable  loveliness  of  God  ?  One  momentary  ilasli 
of  His  beauty  would  separate  body  and  soul  by  the 
vehemence  of  the  extasy  which  it  would  eaus-3.  Wo 
shall  need  to  be  fortified  with  the  mysterious  strength 
of  the  light  of  glory,  before  in  the  robust  freshness  of 
cur  immortality  we  can  lie  and  look  upon  that  beauty, 
tranquil  and  unscathed.  We  shall  see  before  us  in 
living  radiance,  in  the  light  of  its  own  incomprehensi- 
bility, in  the  shapeliness  of  its  own  immensity,  infinite 
light  and  infinite  power,  infinite  wisdom  with  infinite 
sweetness,  infinite  joy  and  infinite  glory,  infinite  majesty 
with  infinite  holiness,  infinite  riches  with  an  infinite 
sea  of  being ;  we  shall  behold  it  not  only  containing  all 
real  and  all  imaginary  and  all  possible  goods,  but  con- 
taining them  in  the  most  eminent  and  unutterable 
manner,  and  not  only  so,  but  containing  them,  O 
breathless  exhibition  of  most  ravishing  supernal  beauty! 
in  the  unity  of  most  transcending  and  majestic  sim- 
plicity ;  and  this  illimitable  vision  is  in  its  totality  the 
beauty  of  the  Divine  Nature ;  and  what  we  see,  though 
we  say  it,  is  not  a  thing,  but  Him,  a  Being,  Him 
our  Creator,  Three  Persons,  One  God.  This  Beauty 
is  God,  the  beautiful  God  !  0  how  we  ourselves  turn 
to  dust  and  ashes,  nay  to  loathsome  death  and  corrup- 
tion, when  we  think  thereon!  We  are  going  to  say 
that  God  has  His  beauty  from  Himself,  we  ours  from 
Him,  that  His  was  illimitable,  ours  almost  impercep- 
tible, that  His  was  within,  ours  borrowed  from  without, 
ihat  His  could  neither  grow  nor  fade,  while  ours  is  a 
fague,  uncertain,  fluctuating  shadow :  but  is  it  not  moio 


190  \VHY  GOD  LOVES  US* 

true  to  say  that  we  have  no  beauty  whatsoever?  0  my 
heart  I  my  heart!  how  loudly  art  thou  telling  me  to 
stop;  for,  as  for  infinite  beauty,  unless  it  might  be 
infinitely  deceived,  it  could  only  be  repelled  by  thy 
guilt  and  wretchedness! 

Infinite  wisdom  must  strangely  have  forgotten  itself, 
if  it  can  be  in  love  with  us  for  our  own  sakes.  The 
most  fearful  thing  about  the  divine  wisdom,  and  that 
which  makes  it  so  adorable,  is  that  it  is  God's  know- 
ledge of  us  in  Himself.  He  does  not  look  out  upon  us, 
and  contemplate  us,  like  an  infinitely  intelligent  spec- 
tator, from  without.  But  He  looks  into  Himself,  and 
sees  us  there,  and  knows  us,  as  He  knows  all  things, 
in  the  highest,  deepest,  and  most  ultimate  causes,  and 
judges  of  us  with  a  truth,  the  light  and  infallibility 
of  which  are  overwhelming  and  irresistible.  St.  Mary 
Magdalen  of  Pazzi  examined  her  conscience  out  loud 
in  an  extasy,  and  we  look  upon  it  as  a  supernatural 
monument  of  delicate  self-knowledge.  But  what  is  the 
self-knowledge  of  an  examination  of  conscience,  by  the 
side  of  God's  instantaneous,  penetrating,  and  exhaust- 
ing knowledge  of  us  in  Himself?  That  wisdom  also 
is  the  capacious  abyss  in  which  all  the  manifold  beauties 
of  possible  creatures,  and  the  magnificent  worship  of 
possible  worlds,  revolve  in  order,  light  and  number 
amidst  the  divine  ideas.  And  what  are  we  by  the  side 
of  visions  such  as  these?  As  the  flood  of  the  noontide 
sun  poured  cruelly  upon  wounded  eyes,  so  is  the  regard 
of  God's  knowledge  fixed  sternly  on  the  sinner's  soul. 
Oh  the  excruciating  agony  it  must  be,  added  to  the  tor- 
ments of  the  lost,  to  feel  how  nakedly  and  transparently 
they  lie  in  the  light  of  God's  intolerable  wisdom !  Must 
not  we  too  have  some  faint  shadow  of  that  feeling?  If 
the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus  did  not  cover  our  cold 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  191 

and  nakedness  and  shivering  poverty,  as  with  a  sacred 
mantle,  or  if  we  fell  out  from  beneath  it  into  the  broad 
day  of  God's  unsparing  wisdom,  we  should  surely  faint 
away  with  fear  and  terror  in  the  sense  of  our  abject 
created  vileness.  Can  we  dream  then  that  God  loves  us 
60  well,  because  He  knows  us  so  thoroughly?  0  no! 
like  little  children  must  we  hide  our  faces  in  the  lap  of 
our  dearest  Lord,  and  cry  with  half-stifled  voice,  Turn 
away  Thy  face  from  my  sins,  and  blot  out  all  my 
iniquities !  Infinite  wisdom  has  almost  taxed  itself 
with  ingenious  desires  to  save  our  souls  and  to  win 
our  love;  and  what,  in  spite  of  all  its  curious  array  of 
graces  and  inventions,  have  we  become:  and.  how  can 
that  wisdom  look  upon  us  and  be  otherwise  than  dis- 
appointed? And  what  must  disappointment  be  like, 
in  God  ? 

That  which  is  most  like  a  limit  to  omnipotence  is 
the  free  will  of  man:  and  that  which  looks  most  like  a 
failure  in  unfailing  power  is  the  scantiness  of  the  love 
which  God  obtains  from  man.  We  have  no  words  to 
tell  the  power  of  God.  We  have  no  ideas  by  the  help 
of  which  we  can  so  much  as  approach  to  an  honourable 
conception  of  it.  What  a  boundless  field  of  wild  specu- 
lation possible  creatures  and  possible  worlds  open  out 
to  view !  Yet  all  this  does  not  aid  us  to  imagine  God's 
unimaginable  power.  Possibility  seems  to  us  almost 
iufiuite,  so  widely  does  it  reach,  so  much  does  it  imply, 
so  stupendous  is  the  variety  of  operations  within  its 
grasp.  But  a  Being  who  is  not  bound  by  impossibility, 
to  whom  the  impossible  is  no  limit  whatever,  to  whom 
nothing  is  impossible,  what  can  He  be  like?  We  may 
heap  up  words  for  years,  and  we  get  no  nearer  to  realiz- 
ing what  we  mean.  We  have  no  picture  of  it  in  our 
minds.     Now*  if  to  such  tcnific  power,  there  could. 


1921  WHY  GOD  LOVES  USi 

"be  great  or  small,  should  not  we  be  so  small  as  to  be 
contemptible  in  its  sight,  and  so  it  would  pass  us  over  ? 
But  if  we  have  restrained  this  grand  omnipotence,  if 
we  have  dared  to  brave  its  might,  if  we  have  ven- 
tured to  try  our  strength  with  its  strength,  if  we 
have  dared  to  throw  our  wills  as  an  obstacle  beneath 
the  rushing  of  its  impetuous  wheels,  should  we  not 
expect,  if  God  were  only  and  simply  power,  that  it 
would  tread  us  out  of  life,  trample  us  back  into  our 
darksome  nothingness,  and  then  onward,  onward,  on- 
ward still,  upon  its  swift  resplendent  way  through 
exhaustless  miracles,  uncounted  worlds,  and  nameless 
fields  of  unimaginable  glory  ? 

-  God  is  truth,  all  truth,  the  only  truth.  Truth  is  the 
beauty  of  God,  and  His  beauty  is  the  plenitude  of 
truth.  Everything  is  what  it  is  in  the  sight  of  God, 
and  it  is  nothing  else.  Truth  is  the  character  of  God's 
mind,  and  the  perfection  of  His  goodness.  All  truth 
in  creatures  is  a  derivation  from  the  truth  of  God. 
Everything  in  the  divine  ideas  has  a  peculiar  fitness 
and  congruity  which  makes  it  worthy  of  Him,  because 
it  makes  it  truthful.  God  is  truth,  not  only  in  Him- 
self, absolute  unapproachable  truth,  but  He  is  especially 
truth  as  He  is  the  exemplar  of  creatures.  Whatever 
is  true  in  them  is  so,  because  it  is  in  accordance  with 
Him  as  their  rule  and  pattern,  or>  as  philosophers  call 
it,  their  exemplary  cause.  The  whole  truth  of  creatioi? 
is  therefore  in  its  conformity  to  God ;  and  whatever  is 
not  conformed  to  Him  is  a  distortion,  a  horror,  and  a 
lie.  Yet  there  is  perhaps  none  of  the  divine  excel- 
lencies which  more  broadly  distinguish  the  Creator  from 
the  creature  than  this  of  truth,  none  with  which  it  is 
ignore  important  for  us  to  communicate,  and  none  whose 
.communication  is  more  thoroughly  supernatural,  or  in 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  193 

which  perseverance  is  more  difficult.  Moreover  so 
necessary  to  creation  13  this  divine  perfection  in  the 
Creator,  that  all  creatures  might  say,  by  instinct  as  well 
as  by  inspiration,  Let  God  be  true  and  every  man  a 
liar.  But  now  if  truth,  the  only  created  truth,  is  like- 
ness to  Clod,  conformity  to  God,  a  direct  aiming  at  God, 
how  far  is  there  any  truth  in  us  ?  How  far  do  we  differ 
from  our  original,  how  do  we  vary  from  our  pattern, 
how  do  we  swerve  from  the  straight  line,  and  are 
awkward  in  the  hands  of  Him  who  builds  the  heavenly 
Jerusalem  after  the  model  of  His  truth  ?  Must  not 
truth  abhor  that  which  is  so  untrue,  as  we  know  our- 
selves to  be  ?  Is  it  not  the  case  that  many  a  time  ia 
life  the  Holy  Ghost  has  wakened  us  up  to  a  sense  of 
our  exceeding  untruthfulness,  so  that  we  see  our  whole 
reality  fading  away  in  the  darkness  of  hypocrisy,  con- 
ceit, pretence,  vainglory,  intentional  falsehood,  half 
deliberate  diplomacy,  circuitous  insincerity,  and  unin- 
tended unavoidable  concealments,  which  yet  make  us 
be  all  the  while  acting  a  part,  and  seeming  to  be  what 
we  are  not  ?  0  we  feel  all  miserable  and  shameful 
with  the  uncleanness  of  untruth,  and  love  to  think,  in 
the  agony  of  our  self-hatred,  that  at  least  the  eye  of 
God  sees  through  and  through  our  dishonourable  dis- 
guises, and  pierces  with  His  rays  of  light  abysses  we 
ourselves  only  suspect  and  do  not  know,  of  the  most 
undignified  and  monstrous  self-deceit !  Does  God  love 
us  then  because  we  are  so  truthful  ? 

Let  us  ask  our  question  of  one  more  attribute,  and 
then  we  will  conclude  our  search.  But  how  shall  we 
speak  of  thee,  0  beautiful  mercy  of  God?  It  is  mercy 
which  seems  above  all  things  to  make  us  understand 
God.     While  the  practice  of  it  in  reality  makes  the 

cieature  like  the  Creator,  it  seems  to  us  as  if  when  He 
13       f 


194  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

practised  if,  it  made  the  Creator  like  the  creature.  For 
it  has  about  it  an  appearance  of  sadness  and  of  sym- 
pathy, a  pit j,  a  self-sacrifice,  a  pathos,  which  belong 
to  the  nobility  of  a  created  nature.  It  makes  God  to 
be  so  fatherly,  as  if  truly  He  sorrowed  for  His  sons, 
and  spoke  kind  words,  and  did  gentle  things  out  of  the 
exuberant  affection  of  the  pain  He  feels  for  our  dis- 
tresses and  our  needs.  How  shall  we  define  this  golden 
attribute  of  mercy?  Is  it  not  the  one  perfection  which 
we  creatures  give,  or  seem  to  give,  to  our  Creator? 
How  could  He  have  mercy,  were  it  not  for  us  ?  He 
has  no  sorrows  that  want  soothing,  no  necessities  that 
need  supplying ;  for  He  is  the  ocean  of  interminable 
being.  Mercy  is  the  tranquillity  of  His  omnipotence 
and  the  sweetness  of  His  omnipresence,  the  fruit  of 
His  eternity  and  the  companion  of  His  immensity,  the 
chief  satisfaction  of  His  justice,  the  triumph  of  His 
wisdom,  and  the  patient  perseverance  of  His  love. 
"Wherever  we  go  there  is  mercy,  the  peaceful,  active, 
broad,  deep,  endless  mercy  of  our  heavenly  Father.  If 
we  work  by  day,  we  work  in  mercy's  light;  and  we 
sleep  at  night  in  the  lap  of  our  Father's  mercy.  The 
courts  of  heaven  gleam  with  its  outpoured  prolific 
beauty.  Earth  is  covered  with  it,  as  the  waters  cover 
the  bed  of  the  stormy  sea.  Purgatory  is  as  it  were  its 
own  separate  creation,  and  is  lighted  by  its  gentle  moon- 
light, gleaming  there  soft  and  silvery  through  night  and 
day.  Even  the  realm  of  hopeless  exile  is  less  palpably 
dark  than  it  would  be,  did  not  some  excesses  of  mercy's 
light  enter  even  there. 

"What  but  mercy  could  have  divined  the  misery  of 
non-existence,  and  then  have  called  in  omnipotence  and 
love  to  build  a  universe,  and  fill  it  full  of  life  ?  This 
was  its  first  essay.    Yet,  as  if  in  the  very  instant  of 


WHY  GOD  LOVES  US.  105 

peopling  nothingness  with  angelic  and  with  human  life 
it    outstripped   itself,    and   was   not   content    with    its 
mighty  work,  it  raised  its  creation  to  a  state  of  graca 
simultaneously  with  its  state  of  nature.      Then  when 
the  human  race  perversely   fell  from  this  supernatural 
order,  and  drifted  away  from  God,  to  deluge  the  world 
with  grace   was   not   enough   for   mercy.     It   brought 
down  from  heaven  the  Person  of  the  Eternal  Word  and 
united  it  to  human  nature,  that   so   it  might  redeem 
the  world  with  the  marvels,  almost  incredible  marvels, 
of  a   truly   divine   redemption.      Anything    therefore 
might  be  asked  of  mercy.     It  might  be  asked  to  fur- 
nish the  reasons  of  the  Creator's  love.     Yet,  if  we  may 
say  so,  mercy  seems  to  be  but  one  method  of  His  love. 
His  love  is  somehow  wider  than  His  mercy,  although 
His   mercy   is  simply  infinite.      Mercy  is  one  of  His 
perfections,  while  love  is  the  harmony  of  all.     Mercy 
does  not  tire  of  us,  does   not   despair  of  us,  does  not 
give   over   its   pursuit  of  us,  takes  no  offence,  repays 
evil  with  good,  and  is  the  ubiquitous  minister  of  the 
Precious  Blood  of  Jesus.     But  love  seems  more  than 
this.    Love  fixes  upon  each  of  us,  individualizes  us,  is 
something  personal.     Love  is  just  and  equitable  no  less 
than  kind,  is  wise  as  well  as  powerful.      Love  is  tan- 
tamount to  the  whole  of  God,  and  is  co-extensive  with 
Him.      Mercy  is  something  by   itself.      Love  is  the 
perfection  of  the  uncreated  in  Himself.     Mercy  is  the 
character  of  the  Creator.     Mercy  pities,  spares,  makes 
allowances,  condescends.      But  love  rewards,  honours, 
elevates,  equalizes  with  itself.     The  idea  of  predilection 
do<>8  not  enter  into  mercy,  whereas  it  is  the  secret  life 
of  love.     We  do  not  know  ;  but  it  does  not  seem  as  if 
mercy  quite  answered  the  question  we  are  asking.  Ani 


.  19 G  WHY  GOD  LOVES  US. 

jet  if  mercy  is  not  Hie  reason  of  God's  love,  where  elso 
shall  we  find  it  in  His  infinity  ? 

But  it  is  time  to  close.  We  have  seen  with  what  a 
love  it  is  that  God  loves  us,  and  we  have  asked  why  it 
is  He  loves  us.  It  must  be  for  reasons  to  be  found 
either  on  man's  side,  or  on  God's  side.  Not  on  man's 
side;  for  he  in  himself  is  nothingness ;  he  is  but  a  speck 
even  amid  rational  creations.  To  his  nothingness  ho 
has  added  rebellion,  and  in  no  way  can  he  add  anything 
to  God.  Even  on  human  principles  his  very  service  of 
God  is  almost  insulting.  He  is  the  contradictory  of 
God  in  all  things,  and  if  he  is  characterized  by  any  one 
thing  rather  than  another,  it  is  by  pusillanimity  and 
meanness.  We  have  therefore  had  to  look  for  the  reason 
on  God's  side;  and  looking  at  His  chief  perfections,  one 
after  another,  we  have  hardly  found  what  we  were  seek- 
ing. Infinite  justice  would  lead  Him  to  punish  us. 
Infinite  sanctity  would  turn  away  from  us  in  displea- 
sure. Infinite  beauty  would  be  repelled,  and  infinite 
wisdom  be  disappointed.  Infinite  power  would  regard 
us  as  contemptible  and  pass  us  over.  Infinite  truth 
would  contemplate  us  as  an  hypocrisy  and  a  lie.  Finally, 
mercy  all  but  infinite  would  tire  of  us,  and  it  is  just  the 
infinity  of  mercy  which  does  not  tire.  But  love  is 
something  more  than  not  being  tired. 

Why  then  does  God  love  us?  We  must  answer, 
Because  He  created  us.  This  then  would  make  mercy 
the  reason  of  His  love.  But  why  did  He  create  us  ? 
Because  He  loved  us.  We  are  entangled  in  this  circle* 
and  do  not  see  how  to  escape  from  it.  But  ic  is  a  fair 
prison.  We  can  rest  in  it,  while  we  are  on  earth ;  and 
if  we  are  never  to  know  anything  more,  then  we  will 
make  our  home  in  it  for  eternity.  Who  would  tire  of 
such  captivity? 


WHY  GOD  LOTES  U3.  197 

God  loves  U9  because  He  lias  created  u9.  "What  sort 
of  a  feeling  is  it  which  the  peculiarity  of  having  created 
some  one  out  of  nothing  would  give  us?  Who  can  tell? 
We  suppose  it  to  be  a  feeling  which  contains  in  itself 
all  the  grounds  of  all  earthly  loves,  such  as  paternal, 
fraternal,  conjugal,  and  filial;  and  of  all  angelic  loves 
besides,  of  which  we  know  nothing.  We  suppose  it  to 
contain  them  all,  not  only  in  an  infinite  degree,  but  also 
in  the  most  inconceivably  eminent  manner,  and  further 
than  that,  with  an  adorable  simplicity  which  belongs 
only  to  the  Divine  Nature.  Bat  when  we  have  imagined 
all  this,  we  seo  that  something  remains  over  and  above 
in  a  Creator's  love,  which  we  cannot  explain;  but  which 
we  must  suppose  to  be  a  feeling  arising  out  of  His 
having  created  us  out  of  nothing,  and  which  is  what  it 
is,  because  He  is  what  He  is,  the  infinitely  blessed  God. 
This  then  is  our  answer:  He  loves  us  because  He  has 
created  us.  Certainly  the  mystery  does  not  fill  our 
minds  with  light:  at  least  not  with  such  light  as  we  can 
communicate  ;  but,  which  is  far  more,  it  sets  oar  hearts 
on  fire. 


193 


CHAPTER  III. 

OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

Mapn*  r£8  amor.  Nam  cum  amat  Deua,  non  aliud  vult  qnam  amari: 
quippe  qui  ob  aliud  non  amat,  nisi  ut  ametur,  sciens  ipsos  amore  beatos 
qui  se  amaverint.    0  suavitatem !    O  gratiam !    O  amoris  vim ! 

8.  Bernard. 

It  has  often  been  the  benevolent  amusement  of  sages 
and  philanthropists  to  draw  pictures  of  imaginary  re- 
publics. Sometimes  they  have  placed  their  ideal  citi- 
zens in  positions  unusually  favourable  for  the  exercise 
of  the  highest  virtues;  at  other  times  they  have  repre- 
sented the  whole  duty  and  happiness  of  men  to  consist 
in  some  one  virtue,  as  patriotism  or  simplicity;  or  again 
these  legislators  have  delivered  their  imaginary  people 
from  all  the  restraints  and  conventions  of  civilization,  in 
order  that  the  development  of  their  liberty  might  take 
its  own  direction  and  have  the  fullest  play.  So  we  also 
might  amuse  ourselves  by  conceiving  some  possible 
imaginary  world.  We  might  suppose  that,  when  the 
day  of  doom  is  over,  God's  creative  love  will  move  to 
some  other  planet  of  our  system,  and  people  it  with 
rational  creatures,  to  serve  Him  and  to  glorify  His 
Name.  We  might  picture  to  ourselves  these  creatures 
as  neither  angels  nor  men ;  but  of  some  different  species, 
such  as  God  knows  how  to  fashion.  They  might  pre- 
serve their  original  integrity,  and  neither  fall  partially, 
as  the  angels  did,  nor  the  whole  race,  as  was  the  un- 
happy fortune  of  man.     They  would  of  course  be  the 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVINQ  GOD.  199 

Subjects  of  Jesus,  because  He  is  the  head  and  first-born 
of  all  creatures.     But  their  way  of  worshipping  Him 
might  be  quite  different  from  ours.     They  might  also 
be  under  different  material  laws  ;  and  different  powers 
of  miud  and  will  might  involve  varieties  of  moral  obli- 
gation very  different  from   those  which  belong  to   us» 
They  might  thus  be  another  variety  in  the  magnificence 
of  Christ's  Church.     They  might  be  higher  than  angels, 
or  lower  than  men,  or  between  the  two.     They  would 
be  least  likely  to  be  lower  than  men,  because  then  our 
Blessed  Lord  would  not  have  carried  His  condescension 
to  the  uttermost.     When  we  have  fully  pictured  to  our- 
selves this  possible  world,  we  might  curiously  descend 
into  every  conceivable  ramification  of  that  new  planetary 
life,  and  see  what  the  behaviour  of  these  creatures  would 
be  like.     We  might  watch  them  in  the  arrangements  of 
their  social  system,  in  the  complications  of  their  public 
life,  or  in  the  minute  habits  of  their  domestic  privacy. 
We  might  picture  to  ourselves  their  trades  and  profes- 
sions, their  standards  of  the  beautiful,   their  arts  and 
sciences,  their  philosophy  and  literature,  their  rules  of 
criticism,  their  measures  of  praise  or  blame.     We  might 
imagine  war  to  be  an  impossibility  of  their  nature,  their 
political  revolutions  to  be  without  sin,  their  sufferings 
not  to  be  penalties  of  a  past  fault,  or  solitude  to  be  to 
them  the  same  sort  of  normal  state  which  society  is  to 
ns.     When  we  had  completed  our  picture,  this  possible 
world  would  have  some  kind  of  likeness  to  our  own, 
although  it  would  le  so  very  different,  partly  because 
God  would  be  its  Creator,  and  partly  because  we  could 
not  paint  the  picture  without  copying  in  some  degree 
from  ourselves. 

This  imaginary  world  would  probably  however  differ 
less  from  ours,  than  ours  would  differ  from  itself,  if  the 


200  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

precept  of  the  love  of  God  were  fully  kept  by  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  world.  Let  us  try  now  to  put  a 
picture  of  this  before  ourselves.  It  need  not  be  alto- 
gether imaginary,  and  it  may  actually  help  to  realize 
itself.  Every  man  and  woman  in  the  world,  and  every 
child  as  soon  as  it  comes  to  the  use  of  reason,  is  bound 
by  the  golden  chains  of  that  delightful  precept.  Chris- 
tian or  Jew,  Mahometan  or  idolator,  all  souls  in  all 
their  degrees  of  darkness  and  of  light,  are  under  the 
bright  shadow  of  that  universal  commandment.  Nothing 
can  be  more  reasonable.  Every  creature  was  created 
by  God  for  God's  own  sake.  Hence  he  has  nothing  to 
do  but  God's  work,  nothing  to  seek  but  God's  glory; 
and  that  work  and  that  glory  God  has  been  pleased  to 
repose  in  love,  in  the  easy  service  of  a  rational  and  yel; 
supernatural  love.  Neither  has  He  left  us  in  uncer- 
tainty with  respect  to  the  extent  of  the  precept.  Hear, 
0  Israel,  the  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord.  Thou  shalfc 
love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  thy  whole  heart,  and  with 
thy  whole  soul,  and  with  thy  whole  strength.  St. 
Matthew  tells  us  that  a  doctor  of  the  law  said  to  Jesus, 
Master,  which  is  the  great  commandment  in  the  law  ? 
Jesus  said  to  him,  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  thy  whole  heart,  and  with  thy  whole  soul,  and 
with  thy  whole  mind.  This  is  the  greatest  and  the  first 
commandment.  Where  Moses  says,  with  thy  whole 
strength,  St.  Matthew  says,  with  thy  whole  mind. 
Thus  God  is  solemnly  declared  to  be  the  object  of  our 
love,  which  love  is  to  be  distinguished  by  two  charac- 
teristics. It  is  to  be  universal:  heart,  soul,  mind,  and 
strength  are  to  go  to  it.  It  is  to  be  undivided:  for  it 
claims  the  whole  heart,  the  whole  soul,  the  whole  mind, 
the  whole  strength. 

Putting  it  then  at  the  lowest,  and  setting  aside  such 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  201 

heroic  manifestations  of  love  as  are  either  the  orna- 
ments of  a  devout  piety  or  the  counsels  of  a  high  perfec- 
tion, what  is  every  one  bound  to  by  this  precept,  as 
soon  as  he  attains  the  use  of  reason?  He  is  bound  to 
love  God  better  than  anything  else:  he  is  bound  to  put 
a  higher  value  upon  God  than  anything  else:  he  is 
bound  to  obey  all  the  will  of  God  about  him  as  far  a» 
he  knows  it :  and  he  is  bound,  at  least  in  general  inten- 
tion, to  direct  all  his  actions  to  the  glory  of  God.  In 
his  heart  nothing  can  be  allowed  to  come  into  competi- 
tion with  God.  His  soul  must  be  engrossed  by  nothing 
short  of  God.  His  mind  must  esteem  nothing  at  all  in 
comparison  with  God  ;  and  all  his  strength  must  be  at 
God's  service  in  a  way  in  which  it  is  not  at  the  service 
of  anything  else.  Whatever  he  falls  short  of  all  this 
from  the  first  day  of  reason's  dawn  to  the  closing  hour 
of  life,  he  must  repair  with  a  loving  sorrow  based  on 
God's  eternal  goodness.  This  is  of  simple  obligation  to 
the  whole  world,  through  the  populous  breadth  of  Asia, 
in  the  crowded  coasts  and  vast  cities  of  Europe,  across 
Africa  from  one  ocean  to  the  other,  from  the  northern- 
most dwelling  of  America  to  where  its  extreme  head- 
lands face  the  antarctic  ice,  and  in  every  island  of  the 
sea  and  palm-crowned  coral  reef,  both  great  and  small. 
It  is  as  much  of  obligation,  more  so  if  it  could  be  more, 
as  to  do  no  murder.  Not  a  creature  of  God  ever  has 
entered  or  ever  will  enter  into  His  eternal  joy,  who  has 
not  kept  this  precept,  or  by  sorrow  won  his  forgiveness 
for  the  breach,  except  the  baptized  infants  of  the  catholic 
church. 

Many  considerations  may  be  more  startling  than  this : 
but  we  know  of  none  which  are  more  profoundly  serious. 
For  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  we  are  speaking,  not  of 
counsel  but  of  commandment,  not  of  perfection  but  of 


202  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

obligation,  not  of  possibilities  but  of  necessities.  It  is 
the  very  alphabet  of  our  religion,  the  starting  point  of 
our  catechism,  the  first  principle  of  salvation ;  and 
reason  claims  to  join  with  revelation  in  imposing  thia 
universal  precept  on  the  souls  of  men. 

Does  the  world  keep  it?  Let  us  see  what  it  would 
be  like  if  it  did  keep  it.  We  are  to  suppose  that  all 
the  men,  women,  and  children  over  seven,  throughout 
the  earth  loved  God  always,  God  supremely,  and  God 
with  an  undivided  heart.  The  earth  might  then  be 
called  a  world  of  undivided  hearts.  It  would  be  the 
peculiarity  of  this  planet,  of  this  portion  of  God's  crea- 
tion, of  this  fair  moonlit  garden  third  in  order  from  the 
sun  :  it  would  be  its  peculiarity  that  it  was  a  living 
world  of  loving  human  hearts,  over  which  God  reigned 
supreme  with  an  empire  of  undivided  love.  This,  we 
must  use  human  words,  is  what  God  intended,  what 
God  expected,  the  paradise  and  court  He  had  prepared 
lor  His  Incarnate  Son.  And  if  it  were  so,  would  it  be 
less  unlike  the  real  world  than  that  imaginary  possible 
world  which  we  were  picturing  to  ourselves  just  now? 

If  all  classes  in  their  places,  and  all  minds  in  their 
measure  and  degree,  were  loving  God  according  to  the 
precept,  wonderful  results  would  follow.  To  realize 
them  we  should  have  to  penetrate  into  every  corner  of 
the  world,  into  every  secret  sanctuary  of  life,  and  watch 
the  revolution  which  divine  love  would  bring  about. 
No  one  thing  would  be  the  same.  The  world  would  not 
be  like  a  world  of  saints,  because  we  are  not  supposing 
heroic,  austere,  self-sacrificing  love,  but  only  the  love  of 
the  common  precept.  Voluntary  suffering  is  part  of  the 
idea  of  the  Incarnation,  or  flows  from  it:  for  Christian 
austerity  is  a  form  of  love,  which  has  little  in  common 
with  the  proud  expiating  penance  of  the  Hindoo,  except 


OUR  MEANS  OP  LOVING  GOD.  203 

the  look.  It  would  not  be  like  an  immense  monastery; 
for  all  men  would  be  in  the  world,  not  leaving  the 
world ;  and  the  world  would  be  a  means  of  loving  God, 
not  a  hindrance  which  our  courage  must  vanquish,  or  a 
enare  from  which  our  prudence  is  fain  to  fly.  Tlure 
would  be  no  wickedness  to  make  a  hell  on  earth :  yet 
earth  could  not  be  heaven,  because  there  would  be  no 
vision  of  God.  It  would  be  more  like  purgatory  than 
anything  else.  For  the  love  of  God  would  not  hinder 
6ufferinor.  though  it  would  almost  abolish  sorrow.  But 
it  would  make  all  men  pine  very  eagerly  and  very 
patiently  to  love  God  more,  and  to  see  Him  whom  they 
already  love  so  much.  The  whole  earth  would  be  one 
scene  of  religion,  not  of  religious  enthusiasm  or  the 
romance  of  sanctity,  but  of  active,  practical,  exclusive 
business-like  religion.  Common  sense  would  be  en- 
grossed with  religious  duties.  Each  man  would  be 
uuimpassionately  possessed  with  religion,  as  if  it  were 
his  ruling  passion,  working  powerfully  under  control. 
Yet  all  this  would  be  within  the  bounds  of  the  common 
precept,  not  like  the  sublime  preternatural  lives  of  the 
canonized  saints.  R  member — we  are  not  speaking  of 
what  is  possible,  so  much  as  of  what  is  conceivable. 

What  a  change  would  come  over  the  political  world  1 
The  Love  of  God  would  be  the  honest  and  obvious  and 
exclusive  end  of  all  states  and  nations.  Diplomacy 
would  fade  away  into  mutual  counsel  for  God's  glory, 
and  having  lost  all  its  mystery,  it  would  lose  all  its 
falsehood  too.  Commercial  treaties,  questions  of  boun- 
daries, the  rights  of  intervention — what  a  new  charac- 
ter the  love  of  God  would  infuse  into  as  many  of  these 
things  as  it  still  allowed  to  live!  The  mercantile  world 
how  calm  and  indifferent  it  would  become !  No  one 
would  make  haste  to  be  rich.   Except  food  and  raimeui 


204  OUR  MEANS  OP  LOVING  GOD. 

and  ordinary  comforts,  we  say  comforts  because,  on  the 
hypothesis,  men  would  not  be  saints,  all  else  of  life 
would  be  prayer  and  praise  and  works  of  mercy,  with 
confession  perhaps  for  venial  sins.  The  literature  of 
these  men  would  give  forth  nothing  but  what  was  chaste 
and  true,  ennobling  and  full  of  faith.  A  daily  news- 
paper, such  as  we  are  acquainted  with,  would  be  a 
blissful  impossibility.  We  fear  that  antiquarian  ques- 
tions might  be  pursued  with  somewhat  less  of  zest  than 
now,  and  possibly  fewer  sacrifices  of  life  be  made  to 
advance  the  interests  of  science.  A  most  vigorous 
reality  would  enter  into  and  animate  everything.  Many 
professions  would  change  their  characters:  many  more 
would  cease  to  exist.  Systems  of  education  would  be 
greatly  modified;  and  prisons  and  police  would  disap- 
pear from  the  land.  Sessions  of  parliament  would  be 
very  short,  and  little  would  be  said,  and  very  much  be 
done.  The  tone  of  conversation  would  be  changed,  and 
a  sort  of  strange  tranquillity  would  come  over  the  race 
of  men,  with  which  energy  would  not  be  necessarily 
incompatible,  but  under  which  our  energy  would  be  so 
different  from  what  it  is  now,  that  we  cannot  at  all 
adequately  represent  it  to  ourselves. 

But  in  return  for  this  apparent  dulness,  which  might 
affect  some  of  the  things  on  which  our  activity  at  pre- 
sent fastens  by  morbid  predilection,  the  world  would 
gcin  much  in  other  ways.  How  magnificent  would  be 
the  controversies  of  such  a  world!  The  peace  and  light 
of  the  love  of  God  would  elevate  the  intellect  a  thousand 
fold.  The  products  of  the  human  mind  would  be  incal- 
culably more  profound  and  beautiful  than  now,  and  the 
amount  of  intellectual  activity  would  be  immeasurably 
increased,  while  a  larger  proportion  of  it  also  would  be 
employed  on  the  higher  branches  of  mental  philosophy. 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  205 

"What  elevation  too,  and  gigantic  progress,  would  the 
physical  sciences  probably  receive,  as  well  from  the 
greater  cultivation  of  mental  philosophy,  as  from  the 
reach  and  grasp  of  intelligence  which  more  abundant 
grace  would  restore  to  us  !  Who  can  believe  we  should 
not  know  much  more  of  nature,  and  of  its  mysterious 
properties,  if  we  knew  more  of  Him  who  originated 
them  all,  and  love  would  teach  us  more  of  Him?  The 
sciences  of  beauty  too,  how  much  more  beautiful  and 
abundant  would  they  come,  when  they  were  called  to 
minister  to  the  sanctuary  of  God,  and  not  to  the  mere 
material  indulgences  of  menl  The  amount  of  private 
happiness  would  be  likewise  augmented  beyond  all  cal- 
culation. All  other  loves  would  be  as  it  were  glorified 
by  the  love  of  God,  and  would  be  poured  out  of  each 
human  heart  with  an  intensity  and  an  abundance  to 
which  sin  is  now  a  complete  impediment.  The  moral 
perfections  of  our  nature  would  bring  forth  exquisite 
and  generous  fruits,  of  which  we  have  at  present  but 
rare  instances  at  distant  intervals.  But  above  and 
beyond  all  this,  there  would  be  a  world  of  supernatural 
actions,  flowing  in  incessant  streams  from  every  heart, 
uniting  us  to  God,  purifying  our  commonest  intentions, 
and  transforming  us  day  by  day  into  an  excellence  far 
beyond  ourselves.  What  must  the  precept  be  whose 
common  observance  would  do  so  much  as  this?  And 
yet  this  precept  actually  lies  upon  each  one  of  us  at 
t;,is  moment  with  the  most  inevitable  universality  and 
the  most  stringent  obligation!  Surely  we  must  see  to 
this. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  engaged  in  two  very  elemen- 
tary enquiries:  Why  does  God  wish  us  to  love  Him, 
and  why  does  He  love  us.  If  God  desires  us  to  lov© 
Him,  there  must  be  some  sort  of  love  with  which  it  is 


203  OUR  MEANS  OP  LOVING  GOD. 

possible  and  right  to  love  Him.  This  is  obvious.  Yet 
in  the  course  of  our  investigations  we  have  come  across 
so  much  in  ourselves  that  is  little  and  vile  and  mean, 
that  we  may  be  tempted  to  think  that  we  cannot  love 
God  with  any  real  or  acceptable  love.  It  is  just  here 
that  God  meets  our  self-abjection,  guards  it  from  excess, 
and  hinders  its  doing  us  any  injury,  by  laying  upon  us 
the  absolute  and  essential  precept  of  loviDg  Him  with 
our  whole  heart  and  soul  and  mind  and  strength.  He 
enables  us  to  fulfil  this  commandment  by  disclosing  to 
us  a  beautiful  variety  of  grounds  or  motives  for  our 
love,  and  He  makes  the  fulfilment  easy  by  the  many 
kinds  of  love,  of  which  He  has  made  our  souls  capable, 
and  which  suit  the  different  temperaments  of  men.  So 
what  we  have  to  do  now  is  to  examine  our  grounds  for 
lovin"  God,  and  then  the  various  kinds  of  love  with 
which  it  is  happily  in  our  power  to  love  our  most  mer- 
ciful Creator. 

We  must  observe,  first  of  all,  that  the  love  which  is 
required  of  us  by  the  precept,  is  a  personal  love.  Nono 
else  will  satisfy.  It  is  not  the  love  of  the  approbation 
of  conscience,  or  of  the  self-rewarding  sense  of  duty,  op 
of  the  loveliness  of  virtue,  or  of  the  immensity  of  our 
recompense,  or  of  the  attraction  which  a  well  ordered 
mind  has  to  rectitude  and  propriety.  It  is  a  personal 
love,  and  must  be  characterized  by  the  warmth,  the 
generosity,  the  intimacy,  the  dominion,  and  all  the 
peculiar  life  which  belongs  to  a  personal  love,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  love  of  a  thing  or  of  a  place.  It  is 
ithe  love  of  a  Being,  of  Three  Divine  Persons,  of  God, 
He  reveals  Himself  to  us  in  various  affectionate  rela. 
tionships,  so  as  to  make  our  love  more  intensely  personal, 
more  like  a  loyalty  and  a  devotion,  and  at  the.  same  time, 
to  adapt  it  better  to  our  human  nature. 


OUB  MEANS  OP  LOVING  60D.  207 

But  -when  we  return  the  love  of  another,  it  very 
much  coDcerns  U3  to  know  what  kind  and  amount  of 
love  it  is  which  we  have  to  return.  At  the  risk  of 
repetition  we  must  therefore  briefly  sum  up  the  love  of 
God  to  man,  as  theology  puts  it  before  us.  God's  love 
of  His  creatures  is  not  the  fruit  of  His  mercy,  or  of 
any  of  the  Divine  Perfections  by  themselves.  His  love 
of  us  is  part  of  His  Natural  Goodness  ;  and  His  natural 
goodness  is  simply  the  excellence  of  His  Divine  Nature 
considered  in  itself.  God's  goodness,  we  are  taught  in 
the  catholic  schools,  is  threefold.  He  is  good  by  reason 
of  the  perfection  of  His  nature,  and  this  is  His  natural 
goodness.  He  is  good  also  by  reason  of  His  sanctity, 
and  this  is  His  moral  goodness.  He  is  good  also  by 
reason  of  His  beneficence,  which  is  called  His  benignity. 
But  in  reality  this  last  goodness  is  simply  a  part  of  the 
first,  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  perfection  of  His 
Nature,  of  His  natural  goodness;  so  that  love  of  crea- 
tures, or  the  Divine  benignity,  is  part  of  the  perfection 
of  the  Divine  Nature.  How  unspeakable  therefore  is 
the  value  of  the  love  of  God,  how  transcending  the 
dignity  with  which  it  invests  the  poor  helpless  creature, 
and  how  completely  does  the  origin  of  His  love  of  us, 
deep  down  in  the  primal  fountains  of  the  Godhead,  sim 
plify  Him,  and  all  His  condescensions,  and  His  gifts, 
and  His  justice,  and  His  anger,  to  pure  and  eimpb 
love ! 

Let  us  follow  the  teaching  of  theology  a  little  further. 
The  Divine  Nature  is  a  plenitude  of  perfection,  a  ful- 
ness and  a  "  super-fulness,"  as  St.  Denys  calls  it.  Not 
that  God  is  too  full,  or  can  ever  cease  being  filled,  but 
He  is  eternally  filled  to  overflowing  with  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  the  magnificent,  and  the  good.  Fulness 
leads  to  communicativeness.    Comniun&atireness  is  tha 


208  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD* 

consequence  of  abundance.  Tt  is  the  necessity  of  an 
overflowing  abundance.  It  seems  a  law  even  among 
creatures,  a  shadow  of  a  higher  law,  that  in  proportion 
as  a  thing  is  perfect,  it  is  full  of  perfection  in  its  own 
kind,  and  longs  to  communicate  itself,  and  at  last  breakB 
its  bound  and  does  communicate  itself.  This  is  the  case 
with  human  love,  human  kindness,  human  knowledge. 
Exuberance  is  an  inseparable  accompaniment  of  perfec- 
tion. So  this  "  super-fulness''  of  God,  this  exceeding 
plenitude  of  the  Divine  Nature,  must  needs  communi- 
cate itself,  and  be  eternally  communicating  itself.  This 
communication  may  be  of  two  kinds,  the  one  natural  or 
necessary,  which  must  be  and  which  must  always  be ; 
the  other  free,  which  God  may  withhold,  which  is  a  gift, 
which  is  not  necessary,  but  which,  when  God  has  once 
been  pleased  to  make  it,  cannot  easily  be  separated  from 
Him  even  in  idea.  We  can  conceive  that  there  could 
have  been  such  a  Being  as  an  Uncreating  God.  But 
we  cannot  conceive  what  He  would  have  been  like. 
He  would  not  have  resembled  our  own  present  God. 
He  would  not  have  been  our  Heavenly  Father  merely 
skort  of  Benignity,  Dominion,  Providence,  Mercy,  Jus- 
tice, and  of  that  perfection  which  makes  Him  the  End 
of  all  things.  His  natural  goodness  would  have  been 
different,  not  less  infinitely  perfect,  but  inconceivably 
otherwise  than  it  is  now.* 

As  the  perfection  of  the  Divine  Nature  is  infinite,  so 
the  communication  of  it  which  is  natural  and  necessary 
must  be  infinite  as  well ;  and  it  must  have  this  myste- 
rious and  adorable  characteristic,  that  it  must  communi- 
cate itself  without  multiplying  itself;  for  how  can  that 
■which  is  infinite  be  multiplied  ?  Hence  comes  the  fecun*. 

«  Lessius  de  Perfect  Divin.  lib.  is.    Also  S.  Thomas  i.  q.  sill,  art.  7. 


OUR  MEANS  OP  LOVING  GOD.  209 

t!ity  of  the  Divine  Nature,  considering  that  Nature  in 
Three  Persons,  the  Father  as  the  Fountain  of  the  God- 
head, the  Son  as  the  Eternal  Knowledge  of  itself,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  as  its  eternal  Love  of  self,  as  one  Essence 
in  Three  Equal  Divine  Persons.     From  the  communi- 
cativeness, or  fecundity  of  the  Divine  Nature,  it  must 
necessarily  be  that  the  Father  ever  generates,  the  S  m 
is  ever  generated,  the  Father  and  the  Son  ever  breathe 
forth  their  love  as  one,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  is  over 
being    breathed    forth.     And   because  of  the    infinite 
plemtude  of  the  Divine  Nature  there  can,  in  this  neces- 
sary and  natural  communication  of  itself,  be  no  sort  of 
inequality,  no  precedence,  no  priority,  no  diminution, 
no  inferiority,  no  subordination.*     These  are  not  mere 
wcrds.     They  are  God's  eternal  life.    They  will  be  our 
eternal  life  as  well. 

Besides  this  ncc:ssary  communication  of  the  Divine 
Nature,  which  is  natural  to  it,  and  inevitable,  there 
is  also  a  free  communication  of  it,  an  overflow  which 
is  a  gift,  a  magnificence  deeply  appertaining  to  God's 
natural  goodness,  and  yet  which  He  could  withhold, 
and  still  be  God.  As  we  call  the  necessary  communi-  • 
cation  of  the  Divine  Nature  its  fecuudity,  so  we  call 
the  free  communication  of  it,  its  benignity,  both  being 
in  fact  consequences  of  God's  natural  goodness,  only 
the  one  necessary,  the  other  free.  There  is  no  limit  to 
the  number  of  ways  in  which  the  Divine  Nature  may 
freely  communicate  itself  to  intelligent  beings  ;  and  each 
of  these  ways  will  represent  a  different  and  peculiar 
rational  creation.  "We  only  know  of  two  such  ways, 
which  have  resulted,  one  in  the  creation  uf  angels,  the 
other  in  the  creation  of  men.     But  there  might    be  as 

*The  reader  must  distinguish  between  the  Divine  Essence  communicating 
itself,  and  the  Divine  Essence  generating  itself,  which  last  is  furbidJen  by , 
the  Laterau  Council  to  be  said, 
14        f 


210  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

many  divers  rational  creations  as  there  are  millions  of 
starry  worlds,  or  all  the  stars  multiplied  a  million  times. 
We  cannot  venture  to  suppose    that   the  creations  of 
angels  and  men  have  exhausted  the  possible  modes  by 
"which  the  Divine  Nature  may  freely  communicate  itself 
to  created  intellects  and  to  created  wills.     Creation,  if 
we  may  say  so,  is  perhaps  only  in  its  infancy ;  and  as  God 
seems  to  have  an  inconceivable  love  of  order,  and  He,  to 
whom  there  is  no  succession,  appears  to  delight  in  doing 
things  successively  in    realms  of   time  and   space,  so 
when  the  doom  has  closed  the  probation  of  the  family 
of   man,  other    creatures  may  succeed,   other  natures 
people  material  worlds,  or  immaterial  homes  of  spiritual 
beauty;  and  so  God  may  go  on  in  His  fertile  benignity 
for  evermore.     I  cannot  look  at  the  starry  skies,  bufc 
this  thought  comes  to  my  mind  like  a  belief.     There 
may  be  rational  creatures  lower  than  man,  though  ifc 
certainly  is  very  difficult  to  conceive  of   them.     Buft 
even  our    limited   capacities   can  imagine  a  perpetual 
efflux  of  rational  creations  higher  than  man  in  almost 
numberless  degrees.    Thus  creation  is  God  doing  freely, 
what  in  the  Generation  of  the  Son  and  the  Procession 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  He  does  necessarily.     The  natural 
goodness  of  God,  which  is  defined  to  be  the  excellence 
of  the  Divine  Nature,  is  the  single  explanation  of  all 
His   operations,    whether  within  Himself   or  without. 
So  that  the  same  love  which  evermore  "  produces"  in 
God,  as  theologians  speak,  the  Holy  Trinity,  made  of 
its  own  free  will  both  men  and  angels,  and  cherishes 
them  with  an  eternal  compassion.   AVliat  a  view  of  crea- 
tion does  not  this  open  out  before  us  !    How  is  it  we  can 
ever  think  of  anything  but  God  ?     O  how  more  than 
royal  is  the  origin  of  our  immortal  souls,  and  in  what 
vast  destinies  does  Divine  love  intend  that  they  should 


OTJB  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  211 

expatiate  for  evermore  !  Earth  grows  more  and  more 
like  a  speck  as  our  thoughts  ascend  :  our  affections 
detach  themselves  from  it  more  and  more.  As  life 
goes  on,  and  life  and  grace  together  draws  us  nearer  to 
God,  earth,  in  spite  of  all  its  affectionate  memori 
becomes  only  a  peopled  planet,  and  nothing  more  :  but 
alas]  why  is  it  we  let  slow  time  do  the  work  which 
Bwift  grace  would  so  much  better  do  ? 

But  this  account  of  God's  love  of  creatures  does  by 
ro  means  include  all  that  is  to  be  said  of  His  love  of 
man.  The  creation  of  angels  is  incomparably  more 
magnificent  than  the  creation  of  men.  Men  are  all  of 
one  species.  The  diversities  of  the  angels  are  no  doubt 
specific.  Some  have  thought  that  as  angels  do  not  pro- 
duce each  other,  like  the  fruitful  generations  of  men, 
each  angel  must  be  a  species  himself.  Others  consider, 
lor  reasons  this  is  not  the  place  to  enter  into,  that  each 
choir  consists  of  three  species,  which  in  the  nine  choirs 
of  the  three  hierarchies  would  make  twenty-seven 
species.  None  would  doubt  but  that  the  hierarchies 
and  even  the  choirs  must  differ  from  each  other  speci- 
fically. Nay,  to  us  we  confess  it  seems  unlikely  that 
earth  with  its  infinite  variety  of  beasts  and  birds,  of 
insects  and  fishes,  should  outdo  the  great  angelic  world 
in  this  peculiar  kind  of  magnificence,  namely,  the 
multitude  of  species ;  and  if  the  specific  differences 
cf  the  angels  are  more  simple  than  those  of  earth,  they 
would  he  all  the  more  striking  because  of  their  simpli- 
city. Yet  in  spite  of  the  superiority  of  the  angdic 
world,  and  because  perhaps  we  are  less  acquainted  with 
its  peculiar  prerogatives,  men  seem  to  have  many  indu- 
bitable pre-eminences  above  the  angels.  The  angels 
imitate  the  virginity  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  without 
its  fruitfulness.     Man  shares  in  the  fruiifulaess  of  God  ; 


21  &  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

and  Mnry,  a  pure  daughter  of  man  and  whose  nature  ig 
merely  human,  shares  at  once  the  fruitfulness  and  the 
#  virginity  of  God,  and,  as  His  Mother,  rules  the  angels 
with  queenly  supremacy  in  heaven.  This  chosen  planet 
was  the  scene  of  the  Incarnation  and  the  Crucifixion  of 
the  Son  of  God.  He  took  man's  nature  upon  Him,  not 
that  of  angels.  He  had  a  human  Mother,  a  human 
Soul,  a  human  Body.  He  spoke  human  language,  and 
had  human  thoughts.  He  had  human  ways  about  Him, 
human  habits,  gestures,  peculiarities,  and  even  infir- 
mities. Furthermore,  when  the  angels  fell,  He  held  out 
no  hand  to  check  them  as  they  went  down  the  frightful 
abyss.  Man  He  forgives,  not  once,  or  twice,  or  seventy 
times  seven  times,  but  many  times  a  day,  and  all  day 
long.  He  stands  in  a  different  relation  to  man,  and  man 
to  Him.  His  love  of  man  comes  out  of  the  same 
natural  goodness,  which  gives  forth  His  love  of  the 
angels.  But  His  love  of  us  is  a  different  sort  of  love. 
His  love  of  us  seems  to  contain  more  than  His  love  of 
them.  At  least  it  has  certain  peculiarities  proper  to 
itself,  a  fondness,  a  clinging  to  us,  a  patience  with  us,  a 
pursuit  of  us,  an  attraction  to  us,  which  the  pardon  of 
the  Fall  and  the  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  do  nothing 
but  exemplify.  Whence  this  predilection  for  the  human 
race?  Whence  this  preference,  on  the  part  of  the 
Divine  Nature,  of  human  nature  over  the  angelic?  Is 
it  because  we  are  so  little  and  so  low  ?  Is  it  because 
the  Divine  Nature  in  yearning  to  communicate  itself, 
yearned  to  do  so  to  the  uttermost,  was  not  con- 
tent short  of  the  lowest  point  of  the  rational  creation, 
and  that  the  depth  of  its  abasement  was  the  measure 
of  its  gladness  and  its  love?  If  so,  new  creations  will 
be  higher  than  man,  not  lower :  lower  than  the  angels, 
God's  eldest  born,  but  higher  than  that  lowest  step  in 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  213 

the  sc.de  of  intellectual  creations,  whereon  the  Incarnate 
"Word  lias  taken  His  stand  that  He  may  embrace  all 
creations  beneath  His  Headship,  and  cement  all  of  them 
together,  the  highest  with  the  lowest,  as  one  doiniuioo. 
pertaining  to  the  Unity  of  God. 

Such  is  the  only  picture  that  we,  after  trial,  have 
been  able  theologically  to  make  to  ourselves  of  the  love 
of  God  for  man.  It  is  this  enormous  love  which  it  is 
our  duty  to  return.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  choice,  or  of 
i.erfection.  It  is  a  question  of  precept  and  obligation. 
It  is  a  commandment,  which  we  shall  be  los:  eternally 
if  we  do  not  endeavour  to  fulfil.  Our  next  step  there- 
fore mu>t  be  to  inquire  upon  what  feelings  of  our  human 
nature  God  has  engrafted  the  possibility  of  our  loving 
Him,  in  what  channels  He  has  bidden  that  love  to  run, 
what  motives  are  to  actuate  it,  on  what  relationships  to 
Him  it  is  to  establish  itself.  For  it  will  be  found 
that  God  is  so  essentially  good  that  whatever  position  He 
takes  up  with  regard  to  us  is  a  new  right  and  title  to 
our  love.  We  do  not  say  that  those  who  are  lost  will 
love  Him,  but  even  in  their  case  His  mercy  has  a  right 
to  love,  both  because  punishment  was  so  long  delayed, 
and  because  it  is  now  inflicted  with  so  much  less  severity 
than  they  have  both  merited  and  could  be  supernaturally 
strengthened  to  endure.  But  in  our  case,  whosa 
account  is  mercifully  not  yet  closed,  it  is  simply  true 
that  every  relation  in  which  God  stands  to  us  furnishes 
us  with  new  and  constraining  motives  to  love  Him  with 
a  fresh  and  daily  beginning  love. 

First  of  all,  we  are  God's  subjects.  There  are  none 
of  us  who  desire  to  question  His  dominion.  We  should 
be  simply  ruined,  annihilated,  if  we  were  not  in  His  cire 
and  keeping.  Obedience  to  Him  is  safer  and  happi  *r 
for  us  khan  any  liberty  of  whijh  w-e  could  dream,     liw; 


214  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

is  our  king,  and  never  monarch  had  so  many  claims  to 
enthusiastic  popularity  as  He.  His  rule  over  us  is  the 
gentlest  we  can  conceive.  It  hardly  makes  itself  felt  at 
all.  His  omnipresence  is  like  the  pressure  of  the  air, 
needful  to  health  and  life,  yet  imperceptible.  His 
government  is  one  of  love.  His  very  penalties  we  have 
to  wiing  from  Him  by  repeated  treasons,  and  when  they 
come  they  are  so  disguised  in  mercy,  that  on  this  side 
the  grave  it  is  hard  to  discern  between  chastisement  and 
love.  His  facility  in  pardoning  is  something  beyond 
compare.  He  seems  to  compromise  His  own  regal 
dignity  by  the  profuse  liberality  with  which  He  uses 
His  prerogative  of  mercy.  He  pardons  not  only  after 
the  nervousness  of  trial  and  the  ignominy  of  conviction, 
but  He  pardons  us  without  mentioning  it,  without 
boasting  of  it,  without  warning  us,  without  getting  the 
credit  of  pardoning,  often  as  in  baptism,  and  with  for- 
gotten sins,  without  even  our  acknowledgment  of  guilt. 
Often  He  seems  to  forgive  before  the  offence  is  com- 
plete. We  sin,  half  knowing  we  shall  be  forgiven.  As 
to  the  consequences  of  our  sins  to  others,  it  is  compara- 
tively seldom  that  He  lays  on  us  the  responsibility  of 
attending  to  them.  He  charges  His  own  administration 
with  that  burthen,  which  of  a  truth  requires  a  love,  a 
wisdom,  and  a  power  which  He  alone  possesses.  No 
earthly  king  was  ever  like  Him  in  His  providence  over 
His  subjects.  No  angelic  monarch  could  come  near 
Him  in  this  beautiful  perfection.  Every  want  is  fore- 
seen. The  vast  complications  both  of  nature  and  of 
grace  fit  close  to  the  individual  life,  shield  it  from  every 
danger,  penetrate  it  with  a  balm  and  sweetness  which 
give  vigour  and  delight,  and  make  each  man  feel  as  if 
the  world  were  made  for  him  alone,  and  as  if  he  were 
rather  the  last  end  of  God,  than  God  the  last  end  to 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOr.  21 J 

Lira.  In  the  exercise  of  Hia  royalty,  all  is  equable, 
timely,  harmonious,  pliant ;  nothing  harsh,  sudden, 
abrupt,  disconcerting,  or  domineering.  Surely  then, 
simply  as  His  subjects,  we  are  bound  to  a  loyalty  and 
love  as  warm,  and  generous,  and  faithful,  as  it  is  easy, 
ennobling,  and  delightful. 

But  we  are  His  servants  also.  Ho  is  our  master  as 
well  as  our  king.  All  servitude  is  full  of  motives  of 
humility.  Servants,  when  they  forget  that  they  are 
servants,  cease  that  moment  to  be  good  servants.  Yet, 
if  we  thought  and  felt  aright,  presumption  would  be 
more  likely  than  abjection  to  grow  upon  the  thought 
that  we  are  in  the  service  of  our  Maker.  The  annals 
of  history  give  us  many  beautiful  examples  of  the 
attachment,  which  a  noble-minded  servant  can  have  for 
his  earthly  master ;  and  the  memorials  of  private  life 
are  full  of  them  all  the  year  round.  But  what  is  it 
which  makes  a  master  so  justly  dear  to  a  good  servant? 
It  is  his  considerateness.  And  who  is  so  considerate  as 
God?  0!i  wonderful  mystery  1  see  how  Gad  always 
shows  by  His  manner  to  us  His  remembrance  of  our 
little  services,  a  forgetfulness  of  our  slovenly  short- 
comings, an  affectionate  exaggerated  satisfac:ion  with 
what  we  do,  and  at  the  worst  a  look  only  of  wondering 
wounded  feeling,  when  disgrace,  reproof,  or  chastise- 
ment would  better  have  fitted  our  misdeeds  !  lie  never 
lets  us  be  oppressed  with  work.  He  never  disregards 
our  fatigue.  He  cheers  us  under  failure.  It  is,  if  we 
must  say  it,  almost  the  fault  of  His  easy  kindness  that 
we  are  apt  to  forget  ourselves,  to  play  the  master,  and 
to  wonder  when  He  does  not  wait  on  us  and  serve, 
though  of  a  truth  He  seldom  fails  to  change  places  with 
us  when  we  want  it.  His  forbearance  is  one  incessant 
miracle.     We  should  not  keep  a  servant  a  month  who 


216  OUR  MEANS  OP  LOVING  GOD. 

treated  us  as  we  treat  Him.  Awkward,  ungracious, 
reluctant,  it  is  thus  we  always  meet  the  courtesies  of 
His  abundant  love,  which  vouchsafes  to  treat  us  on  equal 
terms,  lest  even  the  look  of  condescension  should  wound 
the  silly  susceptibilities  of  our  childish  pride.  As  to 
wng'^s,  both  those  He  has  bound  Himself  to  give,  and 
those  which  come  in  the  shape  of  frequent  gifts,  and 
perquisites  unspecified,  the  bounty  of  an  earthly  master 
is  to  His  munificence  as  the  poverty  of  the  creature  is 
to  the  wealth  of  the  Creator.  Who  would  not  rather 
be  the  servant  of  such  a  Master,  than  to  have  a  whole 
world  left  to  himself  and  to  the  liberty  of  his  disposal? 
Who  would  care  to  have  creation  for  his  property,  when 
he  mav  have  the  Creator  for  his  own  ? 

God  is  our  Friend.  It  requires  an  act  of  faith,  and 
not  a  little  act,  to  say  so.  But  so  it  is;  the  Influite, 
the  Omnipotent,  the  All-holy  is  our  bosom  friend.  We 
doubt  if  any  human  friendship,  ever  really  lasted  the 
whole  of  two  mutual  lives.  Few  men  are  habitually 
sincere,  even  with  the  few  whom  they  love  extremely. 
Fewer  still  trust  their  friends  with  a  perfectly  confi  ling 
trust.  Nay,  friendship  shows  itself  in  a  morbid  readi- 
ness to  take  offence,  in  petty  diplomacies  to  find  out  if 
injurious  suspicions  are  true,  iu  proud  silences  which 
will  not  ask  for  explanations,  or  in  childish  breaches 
made  for  the  childish  excitement  of  reconciliations. 
The  truth  is,  friendship  is  a  romance,  that  has  been 
written  and  spoken  a  thousand  times  among  men,  but 
seldom  acted,  unless  in  a  dramatic  way.  Thus  we  pray 
proverbially  to  be  saved  from  our  friends,  and  we  say- 
that  a  man  who  has  many  acquaintances,  and  few 
friends,  is  at  once  the  happiest  and  the  safest  of  man- 
kind. There  have  hardly  been  a  dozen  friendships  since 
&~e  time  of  Jonathan  and  David,  which  could  bear  the 


OUB  MEANS  OF  LOT-ING  GOD.  217 

weight  of  an  awkward* looking  cirmmstnnre,  or  a 
decently  attested  report.  And  friendship  at  its  heigh*, 
m  the  fervour  of  its  fever-fit,  what  is  it  but  a  tyranny? 
Our  friends  thiok  themselves  gods,  not  men,  and  us  their 
instruments,  the  profitable  implements  of  their  pleasure, 
their  ambition,  and  their  will.  Friendship  is  not  con- 
secrated by  a  sacrament  a9  marriage  i3.  Nevertheless 
we  must  have  a  friend.  We  shrink  from  imbefriended 
6  litude.  Yet  there  is  no  real  friend  but  God.  He  is 
in  His  own  world  almost  the  solitnry  example  of  the 
beauty  of  fidelity.  See  what  a  friend  He  isl  He  acts 
as  if  He  thinks  better  of  us  than  we  think  even  of 
ourselves.  He  can  suspect  nothing;  for  He  is  God. 
He  forgives  offences  as  fast  as  we  commit  them,  and 
appears  to  forget  as  soon  as  He  has  forgiven.  His  love 
is  always  as  fresh  to  us  as  it  was  at  the  beginning.  He 
keeps  plighting  His  friendship  with  us  by  presents, 
whose  exuberant  variety  never  tires,  while  their  magni- 
ficence and  exceeding  price  outstrip  t.e  fondest  expec- 
tation, and  the  grace  with  which  they  are  conferred 
removes  from  the  sense  of  obligation  all  the  feeling  of 
oppression,  and  conduces  rather  to  the  equal  familiarity 
of  1  >v  •.  AV.  en  ever  we  will  we  can  be  friends  with  God, 
anl  lie  gives  Himself  up  to  His  friends  with  such  a 
romantic  exclusiveness,  that  we  feel  as  if  He  belonged 
to  us  alone,  and  that  all  of  Hi-n  was  ours. 

God  is  our  Father  also,  and  we  are  the  children  of 
His  predilection.  Truants  and  proligils,  no  longer 
worthy  to  be  called  His  sons,  and  yet  still  His  heirs, 
still  the  objects  of  His  most  lavish  paternal  tenderness. 
Did  ever  mother  yearn  over  the  cradle  of  her  first-born, 
as  He  has  yearned  over  us  ?  Did  ever  father  make  his 
children's  sorrows  more  his  own  than  God  has  done,  or 
yet  leave  to  them  so  generousiy  untaxed,  and  uutythed, 


213  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

the  treasures  that  were  theirs?  Did  ever  parental  love 
remain  true  love,  and  yet  punish  so  infrequently  as  He, 
or  when  it  punished,  did  it  with  so  light  a  hand  or  with 
a  sorrow  more  reluctant?  Can  Divine  Love  quite  ex- 
culpate itself  from  the  charge  of  having  spoiled  us  by 
its  indulgence  ?  Did  ever  father  so  consistently  or  with 
such  grave  affection  win  his  children  to  repentance  by 
the  soirow  that  he  showed  and  by  the  increased  kind- 
ness of  his  manner,  as  God  has  melted  our  hard  hearts 
and  drawn  us,  humbled  yet  doubly  loving,  to  His  knees 
for  pardon  ?  Does  not  each  chastisement  seem  worth 
far  more  than  the  pain  it  gives,  by  the  increase  of  love 
and  the  new  inventions  of  His  favour  with  which  He 
follows  it?  0  who  is  such  a  Father  as  God  is!  The 
Eternal  Father,  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
Father  of  His  creatures,  the  Father  from  whom  all 
fatherhood  is  named  in  heaven  and  on  earth  !  "When 
we  think  of  Him  we  forget  the  love  of  our  earthly 
fathers;  for  they  hardly  look  like  fathers  by  the  side  of 
Him. 

He  is  our  Creator  also,  and  we  are  His  creatures, 
the  least  and  lowest  of  those  who  can  glorify  Him  with 
a  reasonable  worship,  and  yet  whom  He  has  loved 
above  the  angels,  and  chosen  to  be  nigher  to  Himself. 
Here  we  have  no  earthly  term  of  comparison  whereby 
to  judge  of  His  surpassing  love.  He  has  chosen  us ; 
and  choice  is  the  highest  act  of  love.  He  chose  us 
when  as  yet  we  lay  in  the  bosom  of  the  great  void., 
distinguishable  only  to  the  piercing  eye  of  His  preference 
and  love.  He  chose  us  rather  than  others.  He  had  a 
special  love  for  something  we  by  grace  might  be,  anl 
which  others  could  not  be  or  would  not  be.  It  was  His 
first  choice  of  us.  It  was  eternal.  Our  likeness  lived 
in  the  Divine  Mind  from  everlasting,  and  was  cherished 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  219 

there  with  infinite  complacency.  He  prepared  a  for- 
tune for  us,  marked  out  a  life,  measured  our  sorrows  to 
us  with  wise  love,  and  tempered  our  joys  so  that  they 
might  not  be  an  injury.  He  gave  us  a  work,  clothed 
ns  with  a  vocation,  and  destined  for  us  a  particular 
crown  and  place  in  heaven.  We  cannot  name  the  thing 
which  is  bright  and  good  within  us,  nor  the  thing  which 
is  attractive  and  delectable  without  us,  but  it  comes 
from  our  creation.  We  have  to  do  with  it,  as  being 
the  creatures  of  the  infinitely  benignant  God.  All  we 
are  or  have  is  His,  together  with  all  we  are  capable  of 
being  and  having.  That  we  are  not  imprisoned  in 
perdition  at  this  moment  is  simply  an  interference  of 
His  goodness.  Our  creation  is  our  share  of  the  infinite 
goodness  of  God.  What  should  we  be  without  it?  Can 
any  love  of  ours  be  otherwise  than  a  poor  return  for 
Eucli  a  love  as  His? 

Cut  we  are  not  only  God's  creatures;  we  are  His 
elect  as  well.  He  made  as  it  were  a  second  choice  of 
us  in  Jesus  Christ.  He  foresaw  our  fall.  He  beheld 
not  only  what  Adam's  fall  entailed  upon  us,  but  He 
saw  our  own  actual  sins  ?nd  guilt.  He  did  not  exag- 
gerate our  shame,  but  He  knew  it  as  not  all  men  and 
angels  together  could  have  known  it.  He  penetrated 
its  unbearalle  corruption.  He  laid  its  loathsomeness 
all  bare  before  His  eyes.  It  was  incredible.  Such 
graces  slighted,  such  inspirations  neglected,  such  sacra- 
ments profaned,  and  with  a  perversity,  a  frequency,  an 
ingenuity  of  aggravating  circumstances,  so  great  that 
perhaps,  if  we  saw  the  hideous  vision  all  in  one,  we 
Bhould  fall  back  and  die.  Nevertheless  it  was  not 
enough  to  repel  His  electing  love.  He  chose  us  to  be 
bathed  in  the  Precious  Blood  of  His  Incarnate  Son. 
He  elected  us  to  a  magnificent  inheritance  of  grace,  and 


220  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVINO  GOD. 

to  the  royalties  of  His  Holy  Church.  By  virtue  of  this 
election  He  gave  us  the  gift  of  faith,  and  threw  open  to 
us  the  golden  gates  of  the  overflowing  and  joyous  sacra- 
ments. By  His  first  election  He  chose  us  out  of 
nothing  to  have  life  :  by  His  second  out  of  darkness  to 
have  light.  Here  again  His  benignity  outstrips  all  the 
comparisons  of  earthly  love.  When  we  think  who  it  ia 
that  elected  us,  who  we  are  that  He  elected,  what  He 
gives  us  through  this  election,  the  way  in  which  He 
gives  it,  and  the  end  for  which  He  has  elected  us,  we 
shall  acknowledge  that  His  election  of  us  is  a  tie  to  be 
repaid,  (and  even  then  what  payment  is  it?)  with  all 
the  fervour  and  fidelity  of  life-long  love.  For  where- 
fore was  it  that  He  chose  us?  He  chose  us  in  Christ 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world,  that  we  should  be 
holy  and  unspotted  in  His  sight,  in  love! 

Can  more  be  said?  Yea!  there  is  still  another  tie 
which  binds  us  fast  to  God.  It  is  the  end  of  that 
whereof  creation  was  the  beginning;  it  is  the  consum- 
mation of  God's  eternal  choice.  It  is  the  marriage  of 
our  souls  with  Him.  We  are  His  spouses,  as  well  as 
His  creatures  and  His  elect.  Indeed  we  are  His  spouses, 
because  we  are  His  creatures  and  His  elect.  But  how 
can  we  tell  wherein  the  peculiarity  of  that  inumate 
union  consists?  When  the  saints  are  betrothed  to 
God,  it  is  by  operations  of  grace  so  magnificent,  by 
supernatural  mysteries  so  transcendent,  that  the  lan- 
guage in  which  they  are  related  seems  unreal  and 
inflated  ;  and  if  such  be  the  Espousals  on  earth,  what 
will  the  Marriage  be  in  heaven  ?  0  who  shall  dare  to 
picture  the  interior  caresses  which  the  soul  receives 
from  Him  who  loved  it  eternally,  and  chose  it  out  of 
nothing  in  a  rapture  of  creative  love  ?  Who  slk.ll  dare 
to  fasten  in  ungainly  human  words  the  sort  of  inex- 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  221 

preteible  equality  with  God  which  the  soul  enjoys,  or 
her  unspeakable  community  of  goods  with  Him  ?  And 
wherefore  does  lie  use  the  word  spouse,  but  to  express 
this  glorious  unity?  Marriage  was  made  a  figure  of 
the  unity  of  God,  and  a  shadow  of  Christ's  union  with 
His  Church.  Its  lore  was  to  supersede  all  other  ties. 
It  was  to  obliterate  the  father's  and  the  mother's  home 
from  the  young  wife's  heart.  It  was  to  ride  conquer<  r 
over  the  fond  mother's  idolatiy  for  her  first-born.  Yet 
all  this  is  the  faintest  of  shadows,  the  feeblest  of  figures, 
to  set  forth  the  union  of  the  soul  with  God  I  How 
shall  we  love  Him  as  we  ought?  Rather  the  question 
should  be,  Can  we  love  Him  at  all  with  anything  wor- 
thy of  the  name  of  love  ?  May  we  even  try  to  love 
Him  who  has  loved  us  with  such  an  overwhelming  love? 
Must  not  our  only  love  be  speechless  fear?  No!  for  it 
is  the  law  of  all  creation,  the  beautiful,  benignant  law, 
the  unexpected,  the  incredible  commandment, — Thou 
sbalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  thy  whole  soul,  with 
thy  whole  heart,  with  thy  whole  mind,  and  with  thy 
whole  strength  ! 

Man's  imagination  can  fly  far,  and  picture  the  wildest 
pictures  to  itself.  But  now  let  it  loose  to  ride  upon 
the  winds  of  heaven,  to  search  the  heights  and  the 
depths,  to  dream  the  most  marvellous  dreams,  and  to 
conceive  the  most  impossible  combinations.  Can  it 
picture  to  itself,  can  it  however  dimly  and  remoUly 
divine  a  greater,  a  more  wonderful,  a  more  various,  a 
more  perfect  love,  consistent  with  the  liberty  of  the 
creature,  than  the  love  which  God  has  shown  and  is 
daily  showing  to  the  sons  of  men  ?  Short  of  His  laying 
violent  hands  upon  our  freedom,  and  carrying  us  off  to 
heaven  by  force,  and  then  doing  fresh  violence  to  our 
nature  and  making  it  endure  and  rejoice  in  the  Vision 


222  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

of  God,  which  without  holiness  would  be  intolerable  to 
us, — short  of  this,  which  would  be  power  rather  than 
love,  can  we  imagine  any  salvation  more  complete  or 
more  abundant  than  that  with  which  God  has   rescued 
man  ?     Count  up  all  that  God  has  done  for  yourself. 
There  is  your  eternal  predestination  and  the  creative 
love  which  called  you  out  of  nothing;    there  is  your 
rational  and  immortal  soul  with  its  beautiful   dower  of 
gifts ;  there  is  your  marvellous  body  with  its  senses, 
which  is  one  day  to  be   transformed   into  surpassing 
loveliness,  while  every  sense  with  its  glorified  capacities 
will  pour  into   the  soul   such   floods    of  thrilling  and 
exquisite  delights,  as  it  will   require   the  strength    of 
immortality  to  bear  :  there  is  the  whole  material  world 
made  for   your  intellectual  or  physical  enjoyment  and 
support,  so  vast  and  glorious  that  a  little  knowledge  of 
one  of  its  least  departments,  its  minerals,  for   example, 
or  its  plants,  makes  a  man  famous  among  his  fellows  : 
there  is  the  guardianship   of  bright  and  holy  angels  : 
there  is  your  election  in  Christ  by  which  you  now  enjoy 
the  faith  and  sacraments:    there  is  the  giving   up   by 
God  of  His  only  Son  to  take  your  nature  upon  Him, 
to  suffer,  and  to  die,  to  redeem  you  from  your  sins: 
there  is  the  gift  of  His  Precious  Blood  and  of   His 
renewed  forgiveness  conferred  upon  you  ten  thousand 
times  ten  thousand  times,  since  you  were  seven  years 
olJ,  nay  from  the  very  first  hour  of  your  regeneration : 
there  is  His  preservation  of  you,  which  is  simply  the 
mnbroken  continuity  of  your  creation,  requiring  every 
moment  of  day  and  night,  of  time  and  of  an  eternity 
to  follow,  as  much  iuflux  from  the  Most  High,  as  was 
needed  to  call  your  soul  out  of  nothing  at  the  first : 
there  are  all  the  special  helps,  the  wisely  adapted  graces, 
i»ud  the  fresh  arrangements  of  divine  tenderness,  which 


OUF.  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  223 

are  waiting  ready  for  the  hour  when  you  shall  come  to 
die:  there  is  the  indwelling  of  the  Third  Person  of  the 
Holy  Tiinity  by  grace  within  your  soul:  and,  finally, 
there  is  your  immeasurable  reward,  which  is  no  gift 
of  God,  no  immense  collection  of  created  pleasures,  no 
multiplication  by  millions  of  the  highest  human  and 
angelic  joys,  but  God,  the  living  God  Himself.  So  that, 
strictly  speaking,  as  a  theologian  says,  it  is  not  sim,  ly 
GoJ  who  is  the  end  of  man,  but  God  Possessed,  God  by 
an  in*,  liable  communication  of  Himself  become  our  own 
cur  {  roperty,  and  our  enjoyment. 

In  this  catalogue  of  the  demonstrations  of  love  there 
ere  many  things  so  great  and  so  utterly  divine  that  the 
unassisted  intelligence  of  the  highest  angel  would  never 
have  suspected  them.     Yet  when  once  the  Incarnation 
was  revealed,  many  imaginations  might  have  been  based 
thereon.    We  do  not  know  if  we  could  have  ventured  to 
clream   of  an    Incarnation  in   humility  and  shame,  in 
poverty  and  hiddenness,  unless  we    had  been  told  it, 
Eut  if  our  dearest  Lord  had  lived  on  earth  His  three  and 
thirty  years,  and  then  gone  away,  we  think   we  might 
have    conceived  some  possible  extensions  of  His  love. 
We  might  have  thought  it   would  have  been  an   addi- 
tional tenderness  it  He  had  remained  on  earth  personally 
until   the  day  of  judgment,   that  we  might  minister  to 
Him,  and  share  the  privileges  of  Mary  and  Joseph,  the 
apostles  and  the  devout  women  in  Judea,  and  have  Him 
near   us   sensibly,    and  thus  worship  Him  as  it  were  at 
Hi-5  own  feet.     But  could  we  ever  have  dreamed  of  the 
superabundant  way  in    which    He   has  effected  this  by 
the  astounding  mystery  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament? 

We  might  also  have  conceived  that  it  would  be  a 
great  consolation  to  have  Him  still  on  earth  that  we 
mi0rht  a;k  Him  lor  dispensations  when  we  needed  them, 


22-4  OUR  31  CASS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

that  we  might  have  intricate  cases  of  conscience  solved 
by  His  ur,  questionable  authority,  that  we  might  have 
formal  permission  from  Him  to  carry  out  our  favourite 
schemes  for  His  greater  glory,  that  we  might  receive 
absolution  from  our  most  heinous  sins,  that  we  might 
ask  Him  what  difficult  passages  in  Scripture  meant, 
and  that  we  nrght  hear  from  His  infallible  lip3  the 
truth  or  falsehood  of  uncertain  doctrines.  All  this 
would  have  been  an  immense  consolation  to  us,  as  it 
were  a  fresh  dispensation  of  His  love  growing  out  of 
the  exuberant  mystery  of  the  Incarnation.  But  it  is 
lust  this,  which  Pie  has  provided  for  us  in  the  Papacy. 
He  has  g'von  out  of  His  dominion,  the  plenitude  of  His 
valid  jurisdiction  to  the  Holy  Father,  that  we  might 
have  it  in  our  necessities,  dispensed  with  a  wisdom  which 
He  guides,  with  a  liberality  like  His  own,  and  a  valid 
jurisdiction  no  whit  infj  ior  to  His,  because  it  is  in  fact 
His  own.  These  two  congenial  mysteries  of  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  and  the  Papacy  seem  to  extend  the  loving- 
ness  of  the  Incarnation,  as  far  as  our  imaginations  can 
conceive. 

But  there  is  a  negative  which  is  almost  as  inconceiv- 
able,  a  consequence  which  we  should  have  expected  to 
follow  from  the  Incarnation,  which  has  not  followed. 
Surely,  if,  when  the  Incarnation  had  been  first  told  us, 
with  all  its  prodigal  tenderness,  its  unnecessary  suffer- 
ings, its  fierce  deluge  of  intolerable  ignominies,  the 
various  atrocity  of  its  pains,  the  pleading  eloquence  of  its 
spendthrift  bloodshedding,  we  had  measured  its  length 
and  breadth,  its  height  and  depth,  to  the  best  of  our 
ability,  we  should  have  expected  that  henceforth,  under 
the  Christian  law,  perfection  would  be  an  obligation, 
that  a  precept  would  have  been  laid  upon  us  all  to  love 
like  the  saints,  and  to  live  lives  like  theirs.     It  would 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  225 

not  have  seemed  at  all  a  stretch  of  jurisdiction,  if  our 
Lord  had  commanded  veryloDg  fasts,  frequent  self-flag- 
ellations, voluntary  austerities,  sleeping  on  the  ground, 
or  painful  vigils.  We  could  neither  have  been  sur- 
prised nor  discontented,  if  in  return  for  what  He  had 
done  for  us,  and  in  likeness  and  honour  of  His  suffering 
life,  He  had  forbidden  under  pain  of  mortal  sin  all  or 
most  of  the  amusements  and  recreations  of  the  world. 
But  we  think  it  is  most  surprising,  in  fact  it  would  bo 
incredible  to  us  if  the  faith  did  not  assure  us  of  it, 
that  the  Incarnation  and  Crucifixion  have  not  added 
one  jot  or  tittle  to  the  original  precept  of  the  love  of 
God,  that  they  have  actually  diminished  instead  of 
multiplied  our  obligations,  that  the  more  incalculably 
bevond  our  power  of  repayment  divine  love  has  become, 
it  should  in  fact  be  easier  to  repay  it,  and  that  less  on 
our  parts  will  save  us,  now  that  so  much  more  has  been 
done  on  His  part  for  our  salvation.  We  are  never  weary 
of  wondering  at  this  result  of  the  Incarnation,  which  13 
to  us  at  once  so  unexpected,  and  at  the  same  time  so 
full  of  overwhelming  love. 

The  conclusion  we  draw  is  this.  Theology,  with  all 
its  numberless  and  marvellous  deductions,  enables  us 
to  imagine  possible  things  with  an  almost  unlimited 
power  of  imagination.  Now  we  have  combined  all  the 
extremes  we  could,  and  conceived  the  most  impossible 
conjunctures;  and  we  cannot,  do  what  we  will,  leave 
man  his  liberty,  and  conceive  one  additional  instance  of 
His  love  which  God  could  give  to  the  human  race.  "We 
cannot  heighten  or  embellish  what  is  actual,  nor  can 
we  dream  of  anything  possible  to  add.  The  love  of  God 
for  man  exhausts  the  possibilities  of  our  imagination. 
Did  God  mean  more  than  this,  did  He  mean  that  it 
had  exhausted  the  possibilities  of  His  wisdom  and  His 

15       -f 


22G  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

power,  when  He  says  so  pathetically  in  Isaias,  0  ye 
inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  and  ye  men  of  Juda,  judge 
between  Me  and  My  vineyard.  What  is  there  that 
T  ought  to  do  more  to  My  vineyard,  that  I  have  not 
done  to  it  ? 

It  is  this  love  outstripping  all  imagination,  which 
<ve  have  to  return :  and  how  ?  There  are  doubtless 
numberless  ways  in  which  God  can  communicate 
Himself  to  created  intellects  and  wills,  and  each  way 
will  produce  a  different  rational  creation,  and  each 
rational  creation  be  capable  of  loving  God  in  a  great 
variety  of  ways.  Thus  among  the  angels  there  may 
be  thousands  of  different  loves  of  God,  for  which  we 
have  neither  name  nor  idea ;  and  all  of  them  are- 
doubtless  extremely  beautiful,  and  highly  spiritual. 
We  are  so  entangled  with  matter  and  material  tics 
that  our  love  is  debased  in  kind,  as  well  as  kept  down 
in  degree.  Whereas  the  angels,  having 'no  connection 
with  matter  during  their  probation,  doubtless  loved 
God  in  their  lowest  degree  with  a  purity  and  a  fixity  of 
contemplation  which  the  highest  saints  hardly  attain 
amongst  ourselves;  though  the  merits  of  many  saints 
may  have  exceeded  those  of  many  angels.  Leaving 
then  the  capacious  spirits  of  angels  as  an  unknown  land, 
we  come  to  the  6ouls  of  men ;  and  a9  far  as  we  can 
divide  one  sort  of  love  from  another,  where  in  reality 
each  more  or  less  involves  the  other,  it  seems  we  can 
■love  God  with  seven  different  kinds  of  love,  the  loves, 
namely,  of  benevolence,  of  complacence,  of  preference, 
of  condolence,  of  gratitude,  of  desire,  and  of  simple 
adoration.  These  are  as  it  were  so  many  capabilities  of 
the  human  soul ;  and  if  the  fulfilment  of  the  precept  of 
love  is  what  concerns  us  most,  both  in  this  world  and 
ia  tho  world  to  come,  the  knowledge  of  these  seven 


CUB  MEANS  OP  LOVING  GOD.  227 

varieties  of  love  must  be  of  the  greatest  importance  to 
our  happiness. 

The  love  of  benevolence  is  one  which  has  been  com- 
monly practised  by  the  saints,  and  often  has  seemed 
childish,  or  at  best  mere  poetry,  to  those  who  love 
God  less  fervently.  There  is  a  strange  pleasure  in  it, 
from  our  putting  ourselves  in  an  impossible  position 
towards  God,  in  order  to  confer  it  on  Him.  We  make 
ourselves  as  it  were  His  benefactors,  instead  of  His 
being  ours.  We  put  ourselves  on  an  equality  with 
Him,  or  even  above  Him.  So  it  seems.  Yet  in 
reality  this  love  of  benevolence  is  the  fruit  of  a  holy 
humility  too  deep  for  words,  almost  too  deep  for  tears. 
By  the  love  of  benevolence  we,  first  of  all,  wish  God  to 
be  more  perfect,  if  it  were  possible,  than  He  really  is. 
Yet  what  a  wild  impossibility!  But  if  God's  love  of 
His  creatures  is  itself  so  exaggerated,  He  must  let  us 
love  Him  with  the  simplicity  of  these  fervid  exaggera- 
tions. Moreover  this  habit  of  wishing  God  impos- 
sible perfections,  is  not  only  the  result  of  a  more 
worthy  and  true  appreciation  of  His  perfection  and 
His  majesty,  but  it  tends  also  to  produce  it,  to  sus- 
tain it,  and  to  increase  it.  It  is  at  once  the  cause 
and  the  effect  of  honourable  thoughts  of  God.  Another 
while  the  love  of  benevolence  takes  the  form  of  ven- 
turesome congratulations.  We  wish  God  all  the  im- 
mense joy  of  His  unimaginable  perfections,  We  know 
that  lie  possesses  it  without  our  wishing  it.  We  know 
that  our  wishes  cannot  swell  by  one  drop  the  mighty  sea 
of  His  interior  jubilation.  But  it  is  an  expression  of 
our  love,  not  in  words  only  but  in  inward  sentiment, 
which  in  His  sight  is  an  act,  and  a  meritorious  act. 
We  bid  Him  rejoice.  We  wish  Him  countless  happy 
returns  of  that  eternal  festival,  which  He  has  in  His 


228  OUR  MEAKS  OF  NOTING  GOD. 

own  blissful  self.  Or,  another  while,  by  the  eamo 
love  of  benevolence,  we  wish  Him  all  increase  of  His 
accidental  glory;  and  our  wish  is  efficacious  prayer, 
and  obtains  for  Him  a  real  augmentation  of  that  par- 
ticular glory.  The  very  wish  of  itself  adds  to  it,  and 
adds  immensely  when  it  comes  out  of  a  pure  heart  and 
a  fervent  spirit.  It  also  obtains  grace  for  others,  anil 
makes  the  cause  of  God  to  prosper  in  the  world.  Some- 
times we  earnestly  desire  that  He  may  have  accidental 
glory  which  He  does  not  receive.  We  wish  that  pur- 
gatory were  emptied  into  heaven,  or  that  there  were  no 
hell,  or  that  all  the  heathen  were  converted,  or  that  all 
wanderers  might  return  to  the  fold,  or  that  some  ono 
day  or  night  there  might  be  no  mortal  sin  in  all  oui* 
huge  metropolis.  All  this,  which  the  saints  have 
reduced  to  as  many  practices  as  there  have  been  saints 
to  practise  it,  is  the  love  of  benevolence. 

The  love  of  complacence  is  of  a  different  disposition. 
It  is  content  with  God.  It  not  only  wants  nothing 
more,  but  it  only  wants  Him  as  He  is.  It  is  adapted 
to  different  moods  of  mind,  suits  other  characters,  or 
meets  the  changeful  dispositions  of  the  soul,  which  no^7 
needs  one  class  of  sentiments  and  now  another.  Com- 
placence fixes  its  eye  upon  what  it  knows  of  God,  wiih 
intense  delight  and  with  intense  tranquillity.  It  re- 
joices that  He  is  what  He  is.  It  tells  Him  so.  It  tells 
it  Him  over  and  over  again.  Whole  hours  of  prayer 
pass,  and  it  has  done  nothing  else  but  tell  Him  this. 
O  sublime  childishness  of  love !  O  most  dear  repeti- 
tion, how  far  unlike  the  vain  repetitions  of  the  heathen, 
which  our  Lord  reproved!  Then  it  broods  over  its 
own  joy.  It  slumbers  over  its  own  heart,  a  sweet  and 
mystical  repose,  and  wakes  to  renew  its  oft-told  tale. 
Then  a  change  comes  over  its  spirit.     A  new  strain  of 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  229 

music  steals  out  from  its  inmost  soul.     It  rejoices  that 
none  else  is  like  to  GoJ.     It  rejoices  with  Him  in  His 
unity,  one  of  His  own  deepest  and  most  secret  joys. 
It  exults  that  none  can  come  near  it.     It  asks  all  the 
hierarchies  of  creation  with  a  boastful  certainty,  vaunt- 
ing iu  its  triumph,  Who  is  like  unto  the  Lord  our  God  ? 
There  is  none  other  God  but  He.     But  its  eloquence 
has  so  touched  its  own  heart,  that  it  becomes  silent 
once  again.     It  leans  on  God,  and  at  last  seem9  lost  in 
Him,  absorbed  in  quiet  gladness  and  a  rapture  of  holy 
thought.     Thence  once  more  it  wakes,  and  seeing  there 
is  none  like  unto  God,  simply  because  He  is  God,  and 
for  no  other  cause,  it  bursts  forth  into  passionate  re- 
joicings, that  He  is  not  only  what  He  is,  but  always 
has  been,  always  will  be  what  He  is,  that  He  is  oi  a 
truth,  and  shall  be,  .and  must  be,  and  alone  can   be, 
eternally  and  victoriously  God.     These  are  the  delight- 
ful occupations  of  complacent  love. 

The  love  of  preference,  or  of  esteem,  hardly  aims  so 
high.     It  is  more  mixed  up  with  thoughts  of  creatures. 
But   it  thinks  of  them  only  to  despise  them,  and  to 
iusuk  them  with  its  intelligent  contempt.     It  compares 
God  with  all  other  things,  as  if  it  had  tried   them, 
convicted  them  of  falsehood,  and  grown  weary  of  their 
vanity.     It  tramples  them  underfoot,  and  makes  steps 
of  their  ruins  whereby  it  may  rise   to   God.     Their 
nothingness  grows   upon  it.     It    becomes    disabused, 
Earthly    ties    no  longer  hold  it  down   from    heaven. 
Detachment  is  its  characteristic  grace.     It  passe*  un- 
resistingly over  the  world,  as  a  swallow  skims  the  green 
meadow,  and  seems  to  have  no  need  of  resting.     Hence 
it  comes  to  appreciate  God  rightly,  because  it  appre- 
ciates Him  incomparably  above  all  other   things.     It 
began  by  terms  of  coirpaiison,  and  ends  by  seeing  that 


230  OUR  MEAKS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

nothing  can  compare  with  Him,  and  that  all  compari- 
son is  fooli8h,  because  He  is  infinite,  eternal,  and  all- 
holy.  It  gives  God  His  right  place  in  the  world,  which 
the  multitude  of  men  do  not  give  Him.  What  is 
practical  religion  but  giving  God  His  right  place  in 
our  heart  and  in  our  life?  The  misery  of  the  world 
is  that  God's  rights  are  disallowed.  This  it  is  which 
makes  it  such  a  desolate  and  weary  land.  It  is  the 
confusion  of  the  world  which  tires  a  loving  heart  and 
a  quiet  spirit.  It  is  all  a  kind  of  base  anarchy.  Words 
and  things  not  passing  current  for  their  right  values 
and  their  true  acceptations ;  importance  attaching  to 
the  wrong  things ;  darkness  unaccountably  held  to  bo 
light;  everything  just  sufficiently  out  of  its  right  place 
to  make  a  tumult  all  around  it,  and  yet  so  nearly  right 
that  we  chafe  because  we  cannot  right  it: — it  is  all 
this  which  the  love  of  preference  remedies,  by  esteem- 
ing God,  not  as  He  deserves  to  be  esteemed  in  Himself, 
but  as  He  deserves  to  be  esteemed  in  competition  with 
creatures.  This  love  expresses  itself  by  the  energetic 
abundance  of  its  good  works,  by  its  active  zeal,  by  a 
most  intense  hatred  of  sin,  by  a  neglect  of  comforts, 
by  sacrifice,  and  by  austerity.  These  are  its  natural 
vents,  and  they  at  once  depict  its  character.  It  is 
a  love,  which,  while  it  worships  all  the  attributes  of 
God,  delights  above  all  things  to  extol  His  sovereignty. 
The  love  of  condolence  differs  widely  again  from  tins. 
It  locks  upon  God  as  wronged,  and  outraged,  and  ia 
sorrow,  as  if  He  needed  help,  and  were  asking  for  an 
ally.  Its  tendency  is  to  wed  His  interests,  and  to 
become  strangely  susceptible  about  His  honour.  Its 
eyes  are  opened  to  see  what  common  men  cannot  see. 
It  beholds  God  concerned  and  implicated,  where  others 
cannot  perceive  so  much  as  a  vestige  of  religion  being 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  231 

in  question.  It  sees  God  everywhere,  as  if  His  omni- 
presence had  been  made  visible  to  it,  like  the  whiteness 
of  the  light  or  the  blueness  of  the  sky.  It  is  a  jealous 
love,  and  considerately  inconsiderate,  so  that  men  are 
apt  to  take  umbrage  at  it.  It  is  very  discreet  but  not 
with  a  discretion  which  the  world  approves.  Its  dis- 
cretion leads  it  to  keep  awake  itself,  and  to  awaken 
others,  lest  God  should  pass  by  unseen,  and  men  should 
not  uncover  as  He  passed.  It  mingles  its  own  cause 
with  God's,  and  speaks  of  the  two  in  the  same  breath 
and  in  the  same  way,  as  David  does  in  the  psalms.  It 
seeks  God  rather  than  looks  at  Him,  and  follows  Him, 
delighted  with  the  humblest  servitudes.  It  has  one 
life-long  grief,  like  Mary's  dolours;  and  that  grief  is  in 
the  abundance  and  effrontery  of  sin.  Sin  is  a  sharp 
pain  to  it.  It  does  not  make  it  angry,  but  it  makes 
it  weep.  Its  heart  sickens  with  the  goings  on  of  men, 
and  it  tries  to  shroud  God  in  the  light  of  its  own 
affectionate  compassion.  It  has  no  anger  with  sinners. 
On  the  contrary  it  has  quite  a  devotion  to  them.  Our 
Lord's  passionate,  piteous,  complaining  love  of  sinner*, 
as  it  is  depicted  in  the  divine  Dialogue  of  S.  Catherine 
of  Siena,  is  the  food  of  its  soul.  The  Sacred  Heart  is 
the  object  of  its  predilection.  It  is  ever  telling  God 
how  sorry  it  is  for  sin.  It  has  a  grand  gift  of  abiding 
contrition  for  its  own  sins,  and  takes  a  holy  pleasure  in 
self-revenge.  It  lends  God  its  eyes  to  weep  rivers  day 
and  night  for  sins  that  are  not  its  own.  The  seven 
dolours  of  Mary  are  as  seven  lives  of  sweet  sorrow 
which  by  grace  it  may  lead,  to  soothe  God  for  the 
transgressions  of  His  children.  The  gift  of  piety,  that 
peculiar  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  moulds  its  spiritual 
life,  and  its  attitude  towards  God  is  emi jently  filial. 
The  atmosphere  of  its  heart  is  a  spirit  of  reparation ; 


232  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

and  it  lets  its  life,  secretly  yet  usefully  and  beautifully, 
waste  away,  like  sweetest  aromatic  gums,  in  sighs  and 
tears  before  the  offended  Majesty  of  God.  O  happy 
they  who  love  with  such  a  love  !  for  they  have  reached 
that  height  of  virtue  which  the  philosopher  saw  only 
as  an  ideal  before  him,  to  feel  pleasure  and  pain,  when 
and  where  we  ought!  O  sweetest  of  all  noviciates 
for  heaven  !  to  have  their  hearts  on  fire  on  earth, 
burning  the  sweet  perfumes  of  human  love  before  the 
throne  of  the  Incarnate  Word  !  To  them,  true  dovelike 
souls,  especially  belongs  that  tender  benediction,  Blessed 
are  they  that  mourn  ;  for  they  shall  be  comforted. 

It  is  to  be  observed  of  the  four  kinds  of  love  already 
described,  that  their  characteristic  is  disinterestedness. 
It  is  not  that  self  is  expressly  excluded,  as  a  false 
spirituality  would  teach,  but  that  it  is  undeveloped.  It 
is  not  rejected,  but  it  is  passed  over.  In  the  next  two 
kinds  of  love  it  occupies,  and  without  reproof,  a  much 
more  prominent  position. 

If  the  quiet  eye  and  the  profound  heart  of  the  con- 
templative Mary  delights  in  that  love  of  condolence, 
which  is  such  a  favourite  love  with  cloistered  souls, 
the  love  of  gratitude  better  suits  the  external  diligence 
of  the  active  Martha.  The  love  of  gratitude  is  pre- 
eminently a  mindful  love.  It  ponders  things  and  lays 
them  up  in  its  heart,  as  our  Blessed  Lady  did.  It 
meditates  fondly  on  the  past,  as  Jacob  did.  It  sings 
of  old  mercies,  and  makes  much  of  them,  like  David 
in  the  psalms.  It  enters  large lv  into  the  composition 
>f  the  Missal  and  Breviary  of  the  Church.  Where 
another  has  the  memory  of  his  sins  continually  before 
him,  a  soul  possessed  with  the  love  of  gratitude  is 
perpetually  haunted  by  a  remembrance  of  past  benefits; 
mi  hid  abiding  sorrow  for  sin  is  a  sort  of  affectionate 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  233 

and  self- reproachful  reaction  from   his  wonder  at   the 
abundant  loving-kindness  of  God.     The  huieousness  of 
sin    is  all  the   more   brought   out,   when    the   light  of 
God's   love    is    thrown    so    strongly    on   it.     Hence  it 
comes   to    pass    that    a    very    grateful    man    is    also  a 
deeply  penitent  man  ;    and    as    the   excess   of  benefits 
tends  to  lower  us  in  our  own  esteem,  so  we  are  humble 
in   proportion   to   our   gratitude.     But    this  love   does 
not  rest  in  the  luxurious  sentiment  of  gratitude.     It 
breaks  out  into  actual  and  ardent   thanksgiving  ;   and 
its  thankfulness  is  not  confined  to  words.     Promptitude 
of  obedience,  heroic  effort,  and  gay  perseverance,  these 
are  all  tokens  of  the  love  of  gratitude.     It  is  loyal  to 
God.     Loyalty    is   the    distinguishing    feature    of    i.4 
service.     It  is  constantly  on  the  look  out  for  opportu- 
nities,   and    makes    them    when   it  cannot  find   them, 
to  testify  its  allegiance  to  God  ;  not  as  if  it  was  doing 
any  great  thing,  or  as  if  it  was  laying  God  under  any 
obligation,    but    as   if  it    was    making   pavment,    part 
payment    and    tardy    payment,    by    little    instalments, 
for  the  immensity  of  His   love.     It  13  an   exuberant, 
active,  bright- faced  love,  very  attractive  and  therefore 
apostolic,  winning  souls,  preaching   God  unconsciously, 
and  though    certainly   busied    about  many  things,  yet 
all  of  them  the  things  of  God.     Happy  the  man,  whose 
lite  is  one  long  Te  Deum  !      He  will  save  his  soul,  but 
he  will  not  save  it  alone,  but  many  others  also.     Joy 
is  not  a  solitary  thing,  and  he  will  come  at  last  to  his 
Master's  feet,  bringing  many  others  rejoicing  with  him, 
the  resplendent  trophies  of  his  grateful  love. 

But  the  love  which  has  most  to  do  with  self  is  the 
love  of  desire.  It  is  this  desire  which  gives  its  value  to 
what  theologians  call  the  love  of  concupiscence.  Saints 
and  sinners,  the  perfect  and  the  imperfect,  the  young 


23  L  OUR  MEANS  OP  LOVING  GOD. 

and  old,  the  penitent  and  the  innocent,  the  cloistered 
and  the  uncloistered,  all  must  meet  in  the  sanctuary  of 
this  love,  and  draw  waters  with  gladness  from  its  celes- 
tial fountains.     What  rational  creature  but  must  desire 
God,  and  desire  Him  with  an  infinite  and  irresistible 
desire  ?     What  created  understanding  but  longs  to  be 
flooded  with  His  sweet  light  ?     What  created  will  but 
languishes  to  be  set  on  fire  by  the  ardour  of  His  extatic 
love  ?     Daniel  is  called  in  Scripture  the  man  of  desires. 
Most  beautiful  of  appellations!   as    if  he  yearned   so 
eagerly  for  God,  that  he  should  pass  into  an  honourable 
proverb  to  the  end  of  time!     How  beautiful  the  sight  if 
we  could  see  with  the  eyes  of  some  sublime  intelligence, 
how  this  desire  of  God  is  the  whole  beauty  and  the 
whole  order  of  His  vast  creation,  drawing  onwards  to 
Himself  across  the  spiritual  realms  of  angelic  holiness, 
or  over  the  land  and  sea,  the  mountains  and  the  vales, 
of  earth,  numberless  created  intellects  and  wills,  and  by 
as  many  various  paths  as  there  are  intellects  and  wills 
to  draw  !     The  tide  of  all  creation  sets  in  with  resistless 
currents  to  the  throne  of  the  Creator,     It  is  this  desire 
which  saves  and  justifies,  which  crowns  and  glorifies. 
It  is  in  the  sacraments,  and  out  of  them,  in  various  de- 
grees of  intensity  and  purity.     It  is  this  love  which  is 
heightened  and  made  more  exquisite  by  the  treraulous- 
ness  of  holy  fear.*      0  glorious  constraints  of  this 

*  Beatus  vir  qui  timet  Dominum.  Qua  ratione  beatus?  Quia  in  mandatis 
ejus  cupit  nimis.  S.  Ambrose.  A  similar  statement,  made  by  the  author 
fiome  years  ago  in  All  for  Jesus,  was  animadverted  on  as  inaccurate.  It  had 
not  however  been  made  without  both  thought  and  reading.  The  expression 
of  St.  Paul,  desideri.um.  hahens  dissolvi  et.esse  cum^Christo,  is  an  act  of  the 
love  of  desire,  I  from  the  force  of  terms,  3  on  the  ancient  authority  of  St.  Basil 
de  reg.  fus.  disput.  cap.  2,  3  on  the  modern  authority  of  Bolgeni.  Amor  di 
Dio,  p.  i.  c,  ii,  iii.  and  that  such  a  love  so  expressed  is  an  heroic  love  is 
asserted  on  the  authority  of  S.  Thomas,  2.  2.  qu.  xxiv.  art.  8.  9.  This  was 
the  authority  00  which  the  statement  in  All  for  Jesus  was  made,  and  in  con 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  235 

heavenly  concupiscence!  It  is  a  love  which  makes  us 
not  only  desire  God,  but  desire  Him  supremely  above 
all  things.  It  makes  us  desire  Ilim  only,  Ilim  always, 
and  Him  intensely  ;  and  it  allures  us  with  untyrannical 
cxclusiveness  to  seek  Him  in  all  tilings  here,  and  to  long 
for  Him  as  being  Himself  our  sole,  sufficient,  and  mag- 
nificent Hereafter.  By  this  love  both  high  and  low  are 
saved ;  and  without  some  element  of  it  was  none  ever 
saved  that  was  saved.  A  saint,  if  such  an  one  could  be, 
fit  to  be  canonized  for  all  things  else,  for  the  want  of 
this  love  would  be  lost  eternally ;  and  the  death-bed 
penitent  who  has  never  known  a  higher  love  will  be 
saved  by  this  alone.  And  do  we  really  desire  aught 
else  but  God  ?  Or  at  least  can  we  desire  aught  but 
eubordinately  to  Ilim,  and  far  below  our  longing  ''or  His 
unspeakable  recompense,  which  is  Himself?  There  is 
nothing  to  satisfy  us  but  Go  J  alone.  All  things  weary 
us,  and  fade.  He  alone  is  ever  fresh,  and  His  love  is 
daily  like  a  new  discovery  to  our  souls.  0  sweet  thirst 
for  God!  Fair  love  of  supernatural  desire!  Thon 
canst  wean  us  better  far  from  earth,  and  teach  us  better 
the  nothingness  of  human  things,  than  the  cold,  slow 
experience  of  wise  old  age,  or  the  swift  sharp  science  of 
suffering,  loss,  and  painl 

There  is  still  another  love.  We  hardly  know  whether 
to  call  it  a  child  of  heaven  or  of  earth.  It  is  the  love 
of  adoration.  It  is  a  love  too  quiet  for  benevolence,  too 
deep  for  complacency,  too  passive  for  condolence,  too 
contemplative  for  gratitude  ;  but  which  has  grown  up 
cut  of  the  loves  of  preference  and  desire,  and  is,  besides, 
the  perfection  of  all  the  other  loves.     It  is  too  much 

sequence  of  the  ciiticism  on  that  passage,  the  references  have  been  verified, 
tne  statement  reconaidereJ,  and  the  duc.rine  of  it  here  re-assertcd  in  its 
natural  place. 


236  OUR  MEANS  OP  LOVING  GOD. 

possessed  with  God  to  be  accurately  conscious  of  the 
nature  of  its  own  operations.  It  finds  no  satisfaction 
except  in  worship.  It  comes  so  near  to  the  vastness  of 
God  that  it  beholds  Him  only  obscurely,  and  instead  of 
definite  perfections  in  God,  sees  only  a  bright  darkness, 
which  floods  its  whole  being  and  transforms  it  into  itself. 
It  is  passive ;  God  gives  it  when  He  wills.  We  cannot 
earn  it.  Efforts  would  rather  backen  it,  if  it  was  near, 
than  bring  it  on  or  win  it  into  the  soul.  It  waits  rather 
than  seeks.  God  is  as  if  He  were  all  Will  to  it.  His 
power,  His  wisdom,  His  sanctity,  they  all  melt  into 
His  Will ;  and  all  that  comes  to  this  love  is  His  Will, 
and  except  of  that  Will,  it  can  take  no  distinct  cogni- 
zance of  anything  either  in  heaven  or  on  earth.  Self 
goes  out  of  it,  and  enters  into  that  Will,  and  is  only 
contemplated  in  it,  although  it  is  eternally  separate  and 
essentially  distinct.  It v  is  oblivious  of  itself,  as  being 
one  with  God.  Its  life  is  wonder,  silence,  extasy.  The 
operations  of  grace  are  simplified  into  one,  and  the 
power  of  grace  which  is  concentrated  in  that  one  is 
above  words  :  and  that  single  action  is  the  production  of 
an  unspeakable  self-abasement.  It  cannot  be  told.  But 
such  was  the  humility  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  and  such  the 
strange  loveliness  of  the  sinless  Mother,  who  so  mightily 
attracted  God  and  drew  Him  down  into  her  bosom. 
As  the  morning  sky  is  all  suffused  with  pearly  hues  from 
the  unrisen  sun,  so  is  the  mind,  though  still  on  earth,  in 
this  love  of  adoration,  all  silently  suffused,  and  flushed, 
and  mastered  by  a  most  exquisite  repose,  which  can 
come  alone  from  that  Beatific  Vision  which  has  not  risen 
yet  upon  the  soul. 

These  are  the  seven  loves  whereby  the  creature  man 
can  love  his  beneficent  Creator.  These  are  the  seven 
liturgies,  ancient,  authentic,  universal   liturgies  of  the 


OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD.  237 

human  heart.  Truly  it  is  little  we  can  do  for  God,  and 
ret  how  immeasurably  more  than  we  have  done  for 
Him  as  yet.  A  treatise  mi^ht  be  written  to  reduce 
these  loves  to  practice,*  and  to  illustrate  them  copi- 
ously with  the  examples  of  the  saints.  But  that  is  not 
our  object  now.  Has  earth  any  pleasure,  of  an  intellec- 
tual, moral,  or  material  sort,  to  compare  with  the  frui- 
tion of  a  repentant  life  passed  in  the  occupations  of 
these  various  loves  ?  The  penitent  seeks  peace,  and  the 
end  of  all  love  is  peace,  peace  and  languishing  desire, 
peace  in  the  assured  hope  of  the  soul,  and  pining  for  the 
ever-coming,  still  delaying  Face  of  Jesus  in  the  eastern 
clouds:  that  east  from  which  He  will  one  day  come. 
Before  the  dawn  of  day,  a  huge  toppling  mass  of  un- 
wieldly  clouds  came  up  from  the  west  horizon.  With 
incredible  swiftness  and  the  loud  roaring  of  sudden 
wind,  it  covered  like  a  pall  the  brilliant  moonlit  hea- 
vens, and  deluded  the  earth  with  slanting  columns  of 
whirling  rain.  It  passed  on.  A  star  came  out,  and 
then  another,  and  at  last  the  moon;  and  then  the  storm 
drove  onward  to  the  east,  towards  the  sea,  murky  and 
purple,  and  all  at  once  a  lunar  rainbow  spanned  the 
black  arch  of  heaven  ;  and  it  seemed  as  if  Jesus  should 
have  come,  beneath  that  bow,  and  through  that  purple 
cloud  that  was  barring  the  gates  of  the  sunrise;  but  the 
wind  was  lulled,  and  all  was  still,  by  the  time  the  moon 
had  built  that  bow  upon  the  clouds.  And  what  is  all 
this  but  a  figure  of  our  lives,  one  of  nature's  daily  para- 
bles, of  which  we  might  make  so  much?  Ours  is  a 
pilgrimage,  a  pilgrimage  by  night,  beneath  the  gentle 
moon,  fiom  west  to  east,  from  the  sunset  to  the  sunrise; 
it  is  not  like  our  natural  life  from  east  to  west,  from 

*  The  reader  must  not  confound  these  different  kinds  of  love,  wlrh  the  dif- 

fereat  ftaus  of  Jove  expounded  in  mystical  theology. 


233  OUR  MEANS  OF  LOVING  GOD. 

youth  to  ago,  from  our  rising  to  our  setting;  and  we 
shall  best  beguile  the  way,  and  let  the  storms  go  un- 
heeded over,  if  we  make  God's  " justifications  our  songs 
in  the  house  of  our  pilgrimage,''  and  relieve  our  weari- 
ness by  the  various  magnificence  of  these  seven  canonical 
services  of  our  supernatural  love. 

These  are  the  loves  we  were  made  for.  They  are 
our  means  of  loving  God.  If  we  think  too  much  of 
their  magnificence,  we  may  forget  the  exceeding  loveli- 
ness of  God.  Look  at  a  saint  who  has  loved  heroically 
with  these  seven  loves,  for  even  the  love  of  desire  may 
be  heroic,  and  see  how  little  with  all  of  them  he  has 
done  for  God.  He  has  not  paid  one  of  the  least  among 
the  commonest  of  God's  countless  benefits.  This  is  a 
sad  thought,  and  for  us,  who  are  not  saints,  a  grave 
consideration.  For  remember  how  few  saints  there  are, 
and  also  how  far  off  from  their  love  is  ours !  Oh  the 
majesty  of  God  J  how  it  is  left  desolate,  and  unrequited ! 
Yet  think  again  of  the  mysteriously  huge  price  which 
God  puts  upon  even  our  little  love,  and  upon  the  least 
of  our  little  love  !  How  can  it  be  ?  What  can  it  mean  ? 
When  once  we  go  deep  into  this  subject  of  Divine  Love, 
mysteries  thicken  more  and  more.  God  alone  can  givo 
an  account  of  His  own  love,  and  of  how  His  unerring 
wisdom  comes  to  mistake  the  real  price  of  ours.  O 
beautiful  Goodness  of  God  !  why  are  we  not  really 
beside  ourselves  with  love  of  Thee  ? 


239 


CHAPTER  IV. 

OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD. 

Causa  diligemli  Deura,  Deus  est:   modus,  sine  raodo  diligere.    Est  ce 
hoc  satis ?     i'oitassis  utique,  sed  sapieuti.     S.  Bernard. 

A  voluntary  thought  and  a  deliberate  desire  are  not 
less  actions  in  the  sight  of  God  than  the  words  of  our 
mouths  or  the  operations  of  our  hands.  How  wonderful 
therefore,  is  it  to  reflect  on  the  countless  multitudes  of 
strong  and  vigorous  acts  which  are  rising  up  before  the 
majesty  of  God  from  the  unsleeping  world  of  angels  ! 
Their  active  intellects  with  incredible  swiftness  vary 
their  love  and  praise,  their  wonder  and  admiration, 
almost  incessantly.  They  sweep  all  regions  of  creation 
with  instantaneous  flight,  and  bring  back  on  their  wings 
the  odour  of  God's  glory  and  His  goodness,  to  present 
as  worship  before  His  face :  though  in  their  boldest 
flights  they  have  come  nigh  no  limits  of  His  all-embrac- 
ing presence.  Another  while,  they  plunge  deep  down 
and  out  of  sight  in  some  one  of  His  mysterious  and 
profound  perfections,  and  rise  again  and  scatter  gladness 
round  them,  while  their  thoughts  are  as  showers  of 
light  falling  beautifully  before  His  throne.  Or  again 
they  return  through  the  gates  of  the  heavenly  Jerusa- 
lem, like  labourers  wending  homeward  in  the  evening, 
bringing  with  them  troops  of  human  souls,  dug  out  of 
the  fires  of  purgatory,  or  disentangled  from  the  briars  of 
earth.  In  every  one  of  their  bright  actions  there  flashes 
forth,  as  an  additional  beauty,  their  joyous  dependence 


210  CUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD. 

on  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus,  and  their  placid  obe- 
dience to  His  Human  Mother.  There  is  harmony  too 
in  the  immense  diversities  of  their  unnumbered  acts,  and 
they  all  make  one  vast  unutterable  concord  of  spiritual 
music  in  the  ear  of  God.  And  all  is  sinless  there.  No 
taint,  no  spot,  no  venial  fault,  in  all  that  universe  of 
abundant  energy  and  of  lightning-like  activity.  Its 
exuberance  of  sanctity  is  unflagging  and  everlasting. 
God  be  praised  for  His  goodness  in  securing  at  least 
thus  much  worship  for  Himself! 

A  heart  that  loves  God  is  often  fain,  for  very  weari- 
ness and  sorrow,  to  rest  upon  the  thought  of  that  angelic 
world  and  to  talk  of  it  in  secret  colloquies  with  its  own 
affectionate  and  faithful  guardian  angel.     Yet  the  heart 
cannot  rest  there  long  ;  it  cannot  rest  there  finally.    For 
in  truth  no  one  act  of  that  angelic  worship  is  altogether 
worthy  of  the  Most  High.     The  whole  concourse  of 
marvellous  adoration,  taken  as  one  grand  act,  falls  short 
of  the  exceeding  majesty  of  God,  and  simply  falls  short 
infinitely.     God  is  very  good  to  rejoice  in  it  with  that 
abounding  complacency.     But  it  is  only  another  of  Plis 
condescensions.     It  is  only  another  proof  that  He  is  in 
some   mysterious  manner  wisely  beside  Himself  with 
love  of  His  finite  and  imperfect  creatures.      If   they 
have  been  proclaiming  His  praise  in  their  transcendent 
hymns  for  millions  and  millions  of  ages,  they  have  not 
yet  paid  Him,  they  never  will  have  paid  Him,  for  the 
single  creation  of  any  one,  the  humblest,  of  their  count- 
less hosts.     And  what  they  give  Him,  is  it  not  all  His 
own  already  ?     Did  He  not  evoke  them  out  of  nothing, 
beautiful  and  radiant  as  they  are?     Is  He  not  pouring 
bright  streams  of  being,  into  their  deep,  wide  natures, 
with  assiduous  munificence,  each  moment  of  a  never- 
ending  immortality?     Yet  man,  poor  man,  may  well 


OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OP  GOD.  211 

rest  awhile  his  tired  and  shamefaced  heart  upon  this 
aDgelic  world  of  beautiful  obedience,  and  the  ravishing 
tranquillity  of  its  energetic  love. 

The  world  of  human  actions  is  much  more  limited; 
especially  if  we  regard  only  the  inhabitants  of  earth. 
Nevertheless  to  our  apprehension  it  possesses  immense 
capabilities  for  the  worship  an  1  the  love  of  God.  Each 
one  of  those  seven  loves  which  we  considered  in  the 
list  chapter,  is  capable  of  almost  as  many  changes  and 
as  many  dis:inct  peculiarities,  as  there  are  souls  on  earth. 
Take  away  the  hours  spent  in  sleep,  the  years  before 
the  use  of  reason,  the  dotago  of  extreme  old  age,  and 
the  amount  of  insanity  in  the  world,  and  still  what  a 
vast  number  of  human  actions  call  for  God's  concur- 
rence, and  are  performed  in  His  sight  in  the  four-and- 
twenty  hours!  Yet  none  of  these  actions  need  be 
indifferent  in  the  individual  case.  All  of  them  can 
glorify  God,  and  the  least  of  them  attain  successfully 
a  supernatural  end.  There  are  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands collected  in  the  great  manufacturing  cities  of  tho 
European  nations,  with  all  the  sleepless  activity  of  mind 
and  heart  which  characterize  them.  There  are  the 
wandering  hordes  of  the  desert  and  the  steppe.  The 
crowded  cities  of  the  east,  the  masses  of  Africa,  the 
swiftly  growing  populations  of  the  new  world,  the  well- 
teopled  islands  of  the  broad  ocean,  and  those  who  dwell 
near  the  arctic  snows.  If  we  bring  before  ourselves  hill 
and  vale,  the  river  side  and  wood,  the  sea  shore  and  tha 
pastoral  plain,  and  remember  how  vast  and  various  are 
tho  experiences  of  human  joy  and  sorrow  which  aro 
going  on  in  almost  every  one  of  the  numberless  inequali- 
ties of  the  earth's  surface,  we  shall  be  overwhelmed  by 
the  calculation  of  the  human  actions  which  are  ever 
being  performed, 
16       T 


212  OUr.  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD. 

Now  each  one  of  these  actions  belongs  to  God  by  four 
different  titles,  and  may  be  referred  to  Him  by  as  many 
different  sentiments  of  gratitude  and  love.  His  dominion 
over  us  is  founded  on  His  having  created  us,  on  His 
continuing  to  preserve  us,  on  His  redeeming  us,  and  on 
His  being  our  last  end,  our  final  cause.  These  are  not 
so  much  four  separate  actions,  four  distinct  mercies,  the 
one  separable  from  the  other,  as  the  prolongation  and 
perfection  of  one  divine  action,  namely,  our  creation  out 
of  nothing.  Preservation,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
is  indivisibly  one  act  with  creation.  Redemption  is 
the  preservation  of  our  supernatural  life,  without  which 
the  preservation  of  our  being  would  seem,  not  imper- 
fect only,  but  hardly  a  benefit.  While  the  tie,  which 
binds  us  to  God  as  being  our  Last  End,  is  at  once  the 
cause  of  creation  and  its  effect,  the  crown  and  consum- 
mation of  the  whole  work  of  God*  We  may  be  almost 
said  to  belong  more  entirely  to  God  by  this  last  rela- 
tionship than  by  any  other.  But  all  the  four  ought  to 
enter  more  or  less  into  every  human  action.  "We  have 
no  right  to  eat,  or  drink,  or  recreate  ourselves  without 
seeking  with  more  or  less  determinate  intention  the 
fourfold  glory  of  God  as  our  Creator,  Preserver,  Re- 
deemer, and  Last  End  :  and  a  mere  mental  reference  to 
Him  by  a  loving  heart  is  sufficient  thus  to  ennoble  our 
most  trivial  doings,  and  to  fasten  it  firmly  to  the  throne 
of  God. 

Perhaps  we  have  not  as  much  devotion  as  we  ought 
to  have  to  that  relation  in  which  God  stands  to  us  as 
our  Last  End.  We  think  of  Him  as  our  Creator  and 
our  Father,  and  these  titles  so  abound  in  sweetness  that 
they  flood  our  souls  with  delight,  and  we  cannot  tear 
ourselves  away  from  such  heavenly  contemplations.  Or 
irhen  our  spirits  are  all  freshly  bathed  in  the  cold  foun- 


OUH  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD.  213 

tains  cf  holy  fear,  we  look  up  to  God  with  cliild-like 

and  well-pleased  awe,  as  our  all-holy  judge  and  omni- 
potent irresponsible  king.  It  is  less  common  -with  us  to 
meditate  upon  Him  and  to  worship  Him  as  our  Last 
End,  and  it  seems  as  if  our  spiritual  life  sometimes 
suffered  from  the  omission.  For  this  relation  of  Last 
End  brings  God  before  us  in  a  manner  peculiarly  divine, 
and  to  which  no  earthly  or  heavenly  relationship  can 
furnish  either  parallel  or  similitude.  It  puts  the  whole 
of  practical  religion  in  a  clear  and  undoubted  light.  It 
explains  all  difficulties  and  answers  all  obJ2ctions. 
There  is  no  satisfaction  short  of  God,  no  completeness 
out  of  God,  no  support  but  in  God,  no  rest  but  upon 
God,  no  breathing-time  or  halting-place  except  on  the 
Bosom  of  our  Heavenly  Father.  He  is  the  end  to 
which  we  are  travelling.  Like  a  stone  falling  on  the 
earth,  so  are  we  evermore  falling  upon  God.  Creation 
is  not  solid  ground.  It  lets  us  through,  and  we  do  not 
6top  until  we  come  to  God.  He  is  not  one  of  our 
ends,  but  the  end  of  ends,  our  only  end.  There  1"  none 
other  end  but  He.  All  thicga  else  are  means.  It  is 
this  truth  which  simplifies  our  lives,  and  which  simpli- 
fied the  lives  of  the  saints  until  they  were  pictures  and 
reflections  of  His  own  simplicity.  So  also  if  God  be  our 
Last  End,  He  is  our  only  home.  We  are  strangers 
everywhere  else  but  in  God.  All  things  are  foreign  to 
us  except  God  ;  and  thus  all  our  love  of  home  and 
country,  of  kith  and  kin,  melts  away  into  the  single 
love  of  God.  He  is  the  home  where  our  welcome  is 
certain,  and  surpasses  all  our  expectations.  He  is  our 
irest  where  alone  we  can  lie  down  without  fear  and  sleep 
sweetly.  He  in  His  inaccessible  splendour  is  the  beau- 
tiful night  wherein  no  man  works,  but  when  the  weary 
labourer  reposes  from  his  toil  in  everlasting  bliss*     He 


244  otm  ACTUAL  LOVE  of  god. 

is  the  cool  and  fragrant  evening,  in  whose  endless  sunsefc 
creation  clothes  itself  with  its  final  beauty,  and  reposes 
in  its  golden  beams,  and  all  sounds  of  work  and  all  sighs 
of  care  are  suspended,  and  all  cravings  satisfied,  and  all 
created  spirits  filled  with  an  extatic  life,  so  full,  so 
glorious,  so  far-reaching,  that  the  most  untiring  energies 
of  earth  are  but  as  dreary  indolence  compared  with  its 
magnificent  tranquillity. 

But  we  must  return  to,  the  world  of  human  actions. 
Who  could  number,  at  any  one  given  moment,  the  mul- 
titude of  such  actions  on  the  earth,  the  pains  endured, 
the  sorrows  borne,  the  anxieties  combated,  the  tempta- 
tions resisted,  the  words  spoken,  the  thoughts  thought, 
the  actions  done,  all  of  which  the  heart  of  man  can 
multiply  and  vary  and  complicate  well  nigh  a  hundred 
times  a  minute?  All  these  things  are  the  raw  material 
of  our  love  of  God,  and  all  can  enter  into  those  seven 
kinds  of  loving  worship  which  we  considered  in  the  last 
chapter,  and  all  can  have  a  different  character  of  super- 
natural holiness  impressed  upon  them,  according  to  the 
four  different  titles  under  which  we  may  refer  them  to 
God  as  our  Creator,  Preserver,  Kedeemer,  and  Last  End. 
But  alasl  is  not  this  beautiful  human  worship  like  a  fair 
dream  of  some  possible  creation,  which  may  be,  but  has 
not  been  yet?  How  much  of  these  treasures  of  our 
hearts  does  our  Heavenly  Father  actually  receive? 
Truly  the  tribes  of  men  are  like  a  wilderness,  capablo 
of  cultivation,  where  corn  and  wine  and  oil  might  como 
abundantly  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth,  and  flowers 
bloom,  and  tall  forests  grow,  and  cattle  feed,  but  which 
now  is  little  else.  kthan  sand,  and  stony  plain,  and  low 
bushes,  wearying  the  eye  by  the  very  expanse  of  its 
cheerless  monotony. 

Yet  when  in  our  love  of  God,  and  fretted  with  the 


OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD,  245 

feebleness  of  our  own  worthless  endeavours,  we  turn  to 
the  world  of  angelic  actions,  and  feed  ourselves  upon 
its  fragrant  and  refreshing  fulness,  we  uot  only  soon 
come  to  feel  how  far  below  the  majesty  of  God  is  even 
that  trauseendent  worship,  but  we  rest  at  last  on  human 
acts  as  after  all  the  sole  exclusive  adequate  worship  ot 
the  Adorable  Trinity.  Our  eye  lingers  on  the  fertile 
heart  of  the  Virgin  Mother,  but  there  is  no  rest  for  it 
even  there  ;  and  what  we  seek  for  God,  in  our  sympathy 
and  affection  for  His  slighted  goodness,  we  find  only 
in  the  human  actions  of  the  Incarnate  Word,  in  the 
countless  known  and  unknown  momentary  mysteries 
of  the  Three-and-Thirty  Years,  and  in  the  multiplied 
lives,  the  daily  births,  and  daily  crucifixions,  of  the  altar 
and  the  tabernacle.  There  we  behold  the  Incompre- 
hensible Majesty  of  the  Most  High  compassed  with 
a  worship  equal  to  Himself,  as  deep  and  broad  and  lofty 
and  bountiful  as  His  own  blessed  Self.  There  we  see 
His  infinity  worshipped  infinitely,  with  an  infinite 
worship  almost  infinitely  multiplied,  and  infinitely  re- 
peated, in  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus.  We  would 
almost  rather  be  men  than  angels,  because  these  are 
human  actions,  and  that  is  a  human  Heart.  Jesus  is 
man,  and  not  an  angel.  But  then  He  is  God  Himself; 
and  so  it  is  after  all  to  Himself,  and  not  to  His  creation, 
that  He  owes  this  beautiful  sufficient  worship.  Shall 
we  sorrow  then,  and  cry  Alas!  because  nowhere  is  God 
rightly  loved  and  adequately  worshipped,  and  because 
the  service  of  the  Sacred  Heart  turns  out  to  be  in  fact 
His  own  ?  O  no  !  rather  let  us  bless  Him  again  and 
again  that  He  is  euch  a  God  that  none  can  worship 
Him  as  He  deserves,  that  all  which  is  good  is  at  last 
discovered  to  be  either  Himself  or  at  least  Ilis  owq> 
that  all  beautiful  things   come   out   of  His   goodness, 


245  OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OP  GOD. 

and  go  into  it  again,  and  are  inseparably  mixed  up  with 
it,  and  that  we  only  lose  ourselves  more  and  more 
inextricably  in  the  labyrinth  of  His  Sovereign  goodness 
the  deeper  we  penetrate  into  that  dear  and  awful  sanc- 
tuary. 

But  we  must  strive  to  enter  more  minutely  into  the 
labyrinth  of  our  own  manifold  un worthiness.  We  have 
seen  in  the  last  chapter  in  what  ways  and  to  what 
extent  it  is  in  our  power,  with  the  aid  of  His  grace, 
to  love  Almighty  God.  That  enquiry  was  but  a  preface 
to  this  further  one.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how  do  we 
actually  love  Him  ?  What  is  the  positive  amount  of 
our  love  of  God?  From  all  this  world  of  human 
actions  what  sort  of  proportion  does  He  receive,  and 
with  what  dispositions  is  the  tax  paid  ?  Let  us  try  to 
make  ourselves  masters  of  the  statistics  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  Even  if  it  be  little  in  amount  which  we  pay 
to  God,  yet  much  depends  on  the  spirit  in  which  it 
is  paid.  Little  things  are  enhanced  by  the  manner 
in  which  they  are  done,  and  the  intention  out  of  which 
they  spring.  Let  us  see  then  how  our  generosity 
ennobles  the  meanness  and  enriches  the  poverty  of  our 
love. 

If  we  look  at  mankind  with  reference  to  their  service 
of  God  we  may  divide  them  into  three  classes,  com- 
prising two  extremes  and  a  mean.  The  one  extreme  is 
occupied  by  the  saints,  the  second  by  the  great  mass  of 
men,  and  the  mean  by  ordinary  believers,  such  as  we 
ourselves  may  be.  By  studying  each  of  these  three 
divisions,  we  shall  obtain  something  like  a  clear  view  of 
the  actual  love  of  creatures  for  their  Creator. 

The  first  thing  which  strikes  us  about  the  saints  is  the 
extraordinary  fewness  of  them.  Those  who  are  canon- 
ized bear  no  sort  of  proportion  in  any  one  generation  to 


OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD.  217 

the  numbers  of  the  baptized ;  and  if  we  multiply  their 
number  a  hundred  times,  so  as  to  include  the  hidden 
saints  whom  it  is  not  God's  will  that  the  Church  should 
raise  upon  her  altars,  still  the  grievous  disproportion 
will  scarcely  be  perceptibly  diminished.  Let  us  grant 
the  largest  probable  allowance  for  extraordinary  sanctity 
hidden  in  the  silent  cells  of  the  Carthusians,  or  in  other 
lives,  cloistered  or  not,  of  singular  abasement  and  abjec- 
tion, nevertheless  we  may  suppose  the  number  of  saints 
in  any  age  to  fall  far  below  the  number  of  baptized 
infants  who  die  before  the  use  of  reason,  and  perhaps 
not  to  equal  the  number  of  death-bed  conversions.  If 
we  love  God  really  and  truly,  surely  this  consideration 
cannot  be  otherwise  than  a  painful  one.  And  yet  it 
seems  so  easy  to  be  a  saint !  Graces  are  so  overwhelm- 
ingly abundant,  and  God  Himself  so  unspeakably 
attractive,  that  it  appears  harder  to  be  ungenerous  with 
Him  than  to  be  generous;  and  where  perfection  is 
made  to  consist  simply  in  the  fervour  and  the  purity 
of  our  love,  there  is  almost  an  intellectual  difficulty  in 
comprehending  why  it  is  that  the  saints  should  be  so 
few. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  fewness  cf  their  number  which. 
we  must  consider.  We  must  think  also  of  the  immen- 
sity of  the  graces  which  they  receive.  We  often  get  a 
sight  in  times  of  recollection  and  prayer  of  the  fearful 
way  in  which  our  own  practice  falls  short  of  the  graces 
we  receive.  Nothing  makes  us  feel  our  own  baseness 
more  keenly  or  more  lastingly  than  this.  Perhaps  the 
disproportion  between  the  practice  of  the  saints  and  the 
graces  which  they  actually  receive  may  be  almost  as 
large  as  it  is  in  our  own  case.  At  any  rate  we  cannot 
read  their  lives  without  being  struck  with  the  unused 
and  unemployed  profusion  of  grace  by  which  their  souls 


213  OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OP  GOD. 

are  deluged.  Now  all  this  is  God's  own  outlay.  It  is 
what  He  spends  in  order  to  obtain  saints ;  and  if  we 
measure  extraordinary  heights  of  sanctity  by  the  great- 
ness and  variety  of  the  graces  given,  we  shall  see  that 
even  the  holiness  of  an  apostle  will  seem  to  be  but  a 
poor  return  for  so  prodigal  an  expenditure  of  grace. 
Our  Lord  once  spoke  of  virtue  going  out  of  Him,  when 
a  poor  woman  touched  Him  that  she  might  be  miracu- 
lously healed.  So  we  may  almost  define  a  saint  to  ba 
one  who  drains  God's  abundance  more  than  others  do, 
and  costs  God  more.  He  is  but  crowning  His  own 
gifts,  when  He  vouchsafes  to  crown  His  saints.  So  ia 
it  always  when  we  come  to  look  into  the  interests  and 
affairs  of  God's  glory.  It  is  at  His  own  expense  that 
He  is  served.  He  furnishes  the  banquet  to  which  He 
is  invited.  Like  earthly  fathers,  He  must  give  to  His 
children  the  riches  out  of  which  they  may  make  their 
offerings  to  Him.  His  liberality  supplies  the  means, 
while  His  condescension  stoops  graciously  to  receive 
back  again  what  was  His  own  in  its  first  fulness,  but 
which  has  wasted  and  faded  not  a  little  in  the  transfer 
through  our  hands. 

But  even  at  the  best,  if  we  make  the  most  of  the 
generous  and  heroic  love  of  the  saints,  it  is  absolutely 
vile  as  compared  either  with  its  object  or  with  their 
grace.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  little  which  they  give 
is  already  rather  His  than  theirs;  but  it  is  also  in  itself 
unworthy  of  His  transcending  greatness  and  surpassing 
goodness.  Even  the  saints  are  unprofitable  servants. 
The  chosen  apostles  of  the  Incarnate  Word  were  taught 
so  to  look  upon  themselves.  Yet  these  saints  are  the 
good  extreme  among  men.  From  them,  if  from  any, 
may  God  look  for  a  plentiful  harvest  of  glory.  Their 
purity  of  intention,  their  intensity  of  love,  their  gener- 


OrB  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD.  219 

osity  of  selfsacrifice,  are  the  pas'.ures  in  which  Ilis  glory 
is  to  feed.  Yet  even  here  how  poor,  how  6canty,  how 
irregular  is  the  return  of  the  creature  to  the  All-merciful 
Creator  !  He  has  all  the  work  to  do  Himself  which  lie 
pays  them  for  doing  ;  and  when  they  have  somewhat 
marred  the  beauty  of  His  design,  lie  accepts  their  woik 
as  if  on  the  one  hand  lie  did  not  perceive  its  imperfec- 
tion, and  on  the  other  did  not  recognize  that  all  the 
goodness  and  the  beauty  of  it  were  His  own.  How 
then  must  our  Heavenly  Father  condescend  to  value  the 
worship  and  the  loyalty  of  a  free  created  will !  And 
how  true  it  is  that  even  the  magnificence  of  the  saints 
is  after  all  but  meanness,  in  respect  of  the  boundless 
majesty  and  overwhelming  holiness  of  Him  upon  whose 
grace  they  live,  and  by  whose  Blood  they  are  re- 
deemed ! 

If  we  turn  from  the  saints  to  the  other  extreme,  the 
mass  of  men,  the  vision  which  we  are  constrained  to 
look  upon  is  truly  of  the  darkest  and  most  disheartening 
description.  By  the  side  of  the  multitude,  the  heroism 
of  the  saints  does  indeed  appear  falsely  magnified  into 
the  most  gigantic  dimensions.  Can  anything  be  said  of 
men's  ignorance  of  God,  but  that  it  is  boundless,  univer- 
sal, incredible?  Could  the  livep  of  men  be  what  they 
are,  if  they  had  so  much  as  the  commonest  elements  of 
the  knowledge  of  God?  Do  not  millions  act  and  speak 
and  think,  as  if  God  was  of  a  lower  nature  than  them- 
selves ?  Do  they  not  attribute  to  Him  an  indifference 
to  right  and  wrong,  which  they  would  consider  revolting 
in  a  fellow-creature?  Or  again,  do  they  not  so  com- 
pletely overlook  Him  as  to  forget  His  existence,  and  to 
live  a9  if  there  were  no  one  to  consult  but  themselves,  no 
will  to  satisfy  except  their  own  ?  With  many  it  would 
almost  be  doing  God  too  great  an  honour  to  be  at  the 


250  OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD. 

pains  to  deny  His  existence ;  and  others  only  advert  to 
His  perfections  to  dishonour  them  by  their  unmanly 
superstitions.  Indeed  in  such  complete  ignorance  of 
God  do  crowds  of  men  live,  that  we  could  not  have 
credited  the  possibility  of  it,  if  our  own  observation  had 
not  presented  it  to  us  as  a  fact  which  no  reasonable  man 
could  doubt. 

Moreover  it  by  no  means  appears  that,  with  the 
appalling  corruption  of  our  nature,  the  knowledge  of 
God  is  sufficient  to  secure  for  Him  even  our  esteem. 
Horrible  to  relate,  aversion  to  God  is  far  from  being 
uncommon  among  His  creatures.  There  are  many  bold 
and  impenitent  sinners  who  are  devils  before  their  time, 
to  whom  the  Name  of  God  or  His  perfections  are  not 
so  much  terrible  as  they  are  odious.  When  they  come 
in  sight  of  His  commandments,  or  of  some  manifesta- 
tion of  His  sovereignty,  or  even  some  beautiful  dis- 
closure of  His  tenderness,  they  are  like  possessed  per- 
sons. They  are  so  exasperated  as  to  forget  themselves, 
until  their  passion  hurries  them  on  to  transgress,  not 
only  the  propiieties  of  language,  but  even  the  decorum 
of  outward  behaviour.  There  seems  to  be  something 
preternaturally  irritating  to  them  in  the  very  mention 
of  God,  quite  irrespective  of  the  absolute  dominion 
which  He  claims  over  them  as  their  Creator.  There 
are  others,  whose  habitual  state  of  mind,  when  they 
approach  religious  subjects,  is  to  be  on  their  guard 
against  God,  as  if  there  were  some  dangerous  subtlety 
in  the  greatness  of  His  wisdom,  or  some  artful  over- 
bearing tyranny  in  the  condescensions  of  His  majesty, 
or  some  dishonest  concealed  purpose  in  the  invitations 
of  His  mercy.  With  these  men  the  probabilities  are 
against  God.  He  is  not  likely  to  mean  well.  It  i3 
safest  to  distrust  Him.     Discretion  must  be  aware  of 


OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOJ>>  251 

Him.  Moderation  must  not  be  excited  by  TTim.  Wo 
must  not  let  Him  throw  us  out  of  our  wise  sobriety, 
He  has  come  to  bargain  with  up,  and  we  must  be 
vigilant,  or  we  do  not  know  to  what  we  may  be  in- 
duced to  commit  ourselves.  "With  such  men  their 
first  thought  of  God  is  to  dishonour  Him  ;  for  how  shall 
a  son  doubt  his  father  without  doing  him  dishonour  ? 

There  are  others  who  are  not  by  any  means  to  be  reck- 
oned among  the  mass  of  men,  and  who  serve  Him  truly 
with  a  holy  fear,  but  who  seem  not  to  have  escaped 
altogether  the  contagion  of  this  aversion  to  God.  With 
them  it  shows  itself  in  the  6hape  of  uneasiness,  per- 
plexity, and  doubt.  They  entertain  suspicions  against 
the  perfections  of  God's  justice  or  the  universality  of 
His  compassion.  When  they  hear  of  certain  things, 
j-alousy  of  God  starts  up  as  it  were  unbidden  iu  their 
hearts.  It  is  not  so  much  that  they  have  definite 
intellectual  difficulties  in  matters  of  faith.  But  they 
J  ave  not  that  instantaneous  and  unclouded  certainty, 
that  all  is  right,  and  best,  and  exquisitely  tender,  where 
God  is  concerned,  which  is  the  pure  sunshine  and  in- 
vigorating air  of  the  atmosphere  of  faith.  Nay,  have 
we  not  all  of  us  moods,  in  which  an  allusion  to  God 
makes  us  impatient ;  and  is  not  this  fact  alone  thh. 
nearest  of  any  fact  to  a  deep-sea  sounding  of  our  cor 
ruption? 

It  is  hard  to  see  what  God  has  done  to  deserve  all 
this.  It  seems  most  unkind,  most  cruelly  disloyal  to 
the  immensity  of  His  goodness,  and  to  the  unalterable 
bounty  of  His  compassionate  dominion.  Truly  He  is 
our  King  as  well  as  our  Father,  our  Master  as  well  as 
our  Friend.  But  are  the  relations  incompatible  ?  It 
is  the  very  necessity  of  our  case  as  creatures,  that  we 
must  be  under  a  law  ;  and  could  we  be  under  laws  less 


252  OCR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD. 

numerous,  less  onerous,  than  those  under  which  wa 
are  laid  by  the  unchangeable  perfections  of  God  ?  Easy 
laws,  few  laws,  and  laws  which  it  is  our  own  interest 
to  keep— these  are  the  characteristics  of  the  dominion 
of  God.  Why  then  are  we  restless  and  uneasy,  and  not 
the  rather  happily  lost  in  amazement  at  the  goodness 
of  our  great  Creator?  It  seems  wonderful  that  He 
who  is  so  great  should  also  be  so  good ;  and  it  is  the 
joyous  lesson  which  the  sands  of  life  teach  us  as  they 
run  yearly  out,  that  His  very  greatness  is  the  only 
blessed  measure  of  His  goodness. 

But  ignorance  of  God  and  aversion  to  God  are  not  of 
themselves  a  sufficient  description  of  the  religious  con- 
dition of  the  great  mass  of  men.  There  are  multitudes 
also  who  are  simply  indifferent  to  God.  It  sounds 
incredible.  The  mere  knowledge  that  there  is  a  God 
should  be  enough  to  shape,  control,  revolutionize,  and 
govern  the  whole  world.  And  this,  quite  independent 
of  the  minute,  infallible,  and  touching  knowledge  of 
Him  which  revelation  gives  us.  But  when  that  is 
added,  surely  it  should  be  enough  to  strike  indifference 
out  of  the  list  of  possible  things.  Surely  every  human 
heart  should  be  awake,  and  alert,  to  hear  the  sound  of 
God's  voice,  or  discern  His  footprints  on  the  earth. 
Our  Creator,  our  Last  End,  our  Saviour,  our  Judge, 
upon  whom  we  depend  for  everything,  whose  will  is 
the  only  one  important  tiling  to  us,  whose  Bosom  is  the 
one  only  possible  home  for  us,  and  He  to  be  regarded  as 
6imply  the  most  uninteresting  object  in  His  own  world! 
Is  this  really  credible?  Alas!  we  have  only  to  look 
around  and  see.  Does  a  day  pass  which  does  not  prove 
it  to  us  ?  Nay  very  often,  to  our  shame  be  it  spoken, 
is  it  not  a  considerable  exertion,  even  to  us  to  interest 
ourselves  in  God  ?    And  this  indifference,  can  we  be 


OL'R  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD.  253 

quite  sore  thnt  it  is  less  dishonourable  to   God  than 
positive  aversion  ? 

These  are  melancholy  result?.     Yet  somehow  they 
ppur  us  on  to  try  to  do  more  for  God  ourselves,  and  tfc 
1  >ve  Him  with   a  purer  and  more  disinterested  love. 
Alas!  if  the  saints  are  few  in  number,  those  who  are 
cither  ignorant  of  God,  or  indifferent  to  Him,  or  have 
an  aversion  to  Him,  are  countless   multitudes.     Many 
far   regions   of   this    beautiful  world    are   peopled   by 
idolaters.     The   sacred    places   of  scriptural  Asia   are 
tenanted  by  the  followers  of  Mahomet.     Heresy  and 
Bchism  usurp  whole  countries,  which  boast  of  the  name 
of  Ci.ristian  ;  and  even  in  Catholic  lands,  it  is  depress- 
ing to  think  how  many  thousands  there  are,  who  must 
be  classed  with  those  who  are  not  on  the  side  of  God. 
These  are  very  practical  considerations;  for  if  there  is 
the  least  honesty  in  our  professions  of  loving  God,  they 
must  greatly  influence  both  the  fervour  of  our  devotion 
and  the  amount  of  our  mortification.     They  bring  home 
to  us  that  suffering  and  expiatory   character,   which, 
by  a  law  of  the  Incarnation,  belongs  to  all  Christian 
holiness. 

But  we  shall  find  considerations  even  yet  more  prac- 
tical, if  we  turn  from  these  two  extremes  to  the  mean, 
that  is,  to  ordinary  pious  Catholics,  such  as  we  humbly 
hope  we   either  are  ourselves,  or  are  endeavouring  to 
become.     We   distinctly  aim   at   making   religion  the 
great  object  of  our  lives.      We  are  conscious  to  our- 
selves of  a  real  and  strong  desire  to  love  God,  and  as 
we  grow  older  the  desire  grows  stronger,  and,  to  6ay 
the  least  of  it,  it  bids  fair  to  swallow  up  all  our  other 
desires,  and  become  the  one  single  object  of  our  lives. 
The  four  last  things,  Death  and  Judgment,  Hell  and 
Heaven,  are  often  before  us,  and  fill  us  with  a  holy 


254  OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD. 

terror.  We  fear  sin  greatly,  and  we  sometimes  think 
we  almost  hate  it  for  its  own  sake,  because  it  is  ail 
offence  against  so  good  a  God.  We  have  times  and 
methods  of  prayer.  We  examine  our  consciences.  Wo 
hear  mass  often.  We  visit  the  Blessed  Sacrament. 
We  are  devout  to  our  Lady.  We  frequent  the  Sacra- 
ments. Who  can  doubt  but  that  all  this  is  the  way  of 
salvation  ?  We  are  happy  in  the  grace  which  enables 
us  to  do  all  this.  We  shall  be  happy  indeed  in  the 
grace  which  will  enable  us  to  persevere.  We  are  happy 
also  in  the  thought  that  there  are  thousands  and  thou- 
sands in  the  Church  who  are  thus  serving  God.  But 
let  us  look  a  little  more  cl6sely  into  this,  and  examine 
our  lives  first  as  to  the  amount  of  love  of  God  which 
they  exhibit,  and  secondly  as  to  the  manner  in  which  wq 
show  our  love. 

There  are  twenty-four  hours  in  the  day,  so  many 
days  in  the  week,  and  so  many  weeks  in  the  year.    We 
have  various  occupations,  and  manifold  ways  of  spend- 
ing our  time ;  and  the  most  careless  amongst  us  must 
have  some  confused  and  general  notion  of  the  way  in 
which  his  time  is  distributed.     Now  we  know  that  the 
service  of  God  is  the  grand  thing,  or  rather  that  it  is 
the  only  tiling  about  us  which  is  great  at  all.     What 
amount  of  our  time  then  is  spent  upon  it  ?     How  many 
hours  of  the  day  are  passed  in  prayer,  and  spiritual 
reading,  in  hearing  mass,  or  visiting  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment, or  in  other  direct  spiritual  exercises  ?     Of  the 
time  necessarily  expended  upon  our  worldly  avocations, 
or  the  claims  of  society,  how  much  is  spent  with  any 
recollection  of  Him,  or  with  any  actual  intention  to  do 
our  common  actions  for  His  glory  ?     Can   we   return 
a   satisfactory  answer  to   these  questions  ?     Further- 
more, we  kaow  that  it  is  essential  to  our  love  of  God, 


OUH  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOB.  255 

that  we  should  appreciate  Hira  above  all  things.     Does 
our  practice  show  that  this  is  anything  but  a  form  ot 
words  with  us  ?     Would  strangers,  who  looked  critically 
at  our  daily  lives,  be  obliged  to  say  that,  whatever  faults 
we  had,  it  was  plain  that  we  put  no  such  price  on  anything 
as  on  God?     "When  we  ourselves  look  into  the  interests 
and  affections  of  our  busy,  crowded  hearts,  is  it  plain 
that,  if  the  love  of  God  does  not  reign  there  in  solitary, 
unmingled  splendour,  at  least    it  takes  easy,  obvious, 
and  acknowledged  precedence  of  all  our  other  loves? 
This  is  not  asking  much:  but  can  we   answer  as  we 
should  wish?     Again,  our  actions  are  perfectly  multi- 
tudinous.    If  we    reckon  both  the  outward   and   the 
inward  ones,  they  are  almost  as  numerous  as  the  beat- 
ings of  our  pulse.     How  many  of  them  are  for  God  ? 
I  do  not  say  how  many  are  directly  religious,  but  how 
many  are  at  all  and  in  any  sense  for  God?    How  many 
in  the  hundred?      Even  if  we  are  quite  clear  that  a 
virtual    intention   has   really  got  vigour   and   vitality 
enough  to  carry  us  over  the  breadth  of  a  whole  day,  and 
to  push  its  way  through  the  crowd  of  things  we  have  to 
think,  to  say,  to  do,  and  to  suffer, — and  this  is  a  very 
large  assumption — is  this  virtual  intention  in  the  mora- 
ine to  absolve   us  from  the   necessity    of  any  further 
advertence  to  God,  and   must  it  not  also   have   been 
made  in  the  morning  with  a  very  considerable  degree  of 
intensity,  in  order  to  propel  it  for  so  long  as  twenty- 
four  hours  through  such  a  resisting  medium  as  we  know 
cur  daily  lives  to  be  ?     To  use  our  national  word,  aro 
we  quite  comfortable  about  this?     Are  we  sure  of  our 
view  about  virtual  intention,  and  without  misgivings, 
and  have  we  found  our  theory  work  well  in  times  gone- 

by? 

God  does  not  have  His  own  way  in  the  world.   What 


256  OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD, 

He  gets  He  has  to  fight  for.  What  is  true  of  the  world 
at  large,  is  true  also  of  our  own  hearts  and  lives. 
Though  we  love  God,  and  most  sincerely,  He  has  to 
struggle  for  our  love.  He  has  to  contend  for  the  mas- 
tery over  our  affections.  The  preferences  of  our  corrupt 
nature  are  not  for  Him,  or  for  His  concerns.  Thus  it 
happens  almost  daily  that  His  claims  clash  with  those 
of  self  or  of  the  world.  We  have  to  choose  between 
the  two,  and  give  the  preference  to  the  one  over  the 
other.  We  are  for  ever  having  Christ  and  Barabbas 
offered  to  the  freedom  of  our  election.  Now  do  we 
always  give  the  preference  to  God?  Or  if  not  always, 
because  of  surprises,  impulses,  impetuosities,  or  sudden 
weaknesses,  at  least  do  we  never  wilfully,  deliberately, 
and  with  advertence,  prefer  anything  else  to  God,  and 
give  Him  the  second  place  ?  And  of  the  innumerable 
times  in  which  this  conflict  occurs,  in  what  proportion 
of  times  docs  God  carry  off  the  victory?  And  when 
He  does,  is  it  an  easy  victory?  Or  has  He  to  lay 
long  siege  to  our  hearts,  and  bring  up  reinforcement 
after  reinforcement  of  fresh  and  untired  grace,  until 
at  last  it  looks  as  if  He  were  almost  going  to  throw 
Himself  on  His  omnipotence,  and  overwhelm  the  free- 
dom of  our  will  ?  Or  again,  let  us  look  at  the  degree 
of  application  which  we  bestow  on  what  we  really  do 
for  God.  Let  us  confront  the  carefulness,  and  fore- 
thought, and  energy,  and  perseverance,  which  we 
bestow  upon  our  temporal  interests  or  the  earthly 
objects  of  our  love,  with  those  which  characterize  our 
spiritual  exercises.  And  will  the  result  of  the  exami- 
nation be  altogether  what  we  should  desire  ? 

All  these  are  childish  and  elementary  questions  to 
ask  ourselves.  Yet  the  results  are  far  more  melan- 
choly than  when  we  contemplated  the  ignorance,  aver- 


OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OP  GOD.  257 

cioo,  and  indifference  of  the  great  mass  of  men.  More 
melancholy,  because  we  profess  to  be  God's  champions ; 
it  is  as  it  were  our  place  to  be  on  His  side.  We  live 
encircled  by  His  grace,  which  flows  around  us  like 
the  plentiful  bright  air.  Our  minds  are  illuminated  by 
the  splendours  of  heavenly  truth,  and  our  hearts  led 
sweetly  captive  by  the  winning  mysteries  of  the  In- 
carnation. Our  lives  are  charmed  by  great  sacra- 
ments, and  we  are  each  of  us  the  centre  of  a  very 
world  of  invisible  grandeurs  and  spiritual  miracles. 
And  in  spite  of  all  this,  I  will  not  say  it  is  sad,  it  is 
really  hardly  credible,  that  our  love  of  God  should 
amount  to  so  little  as  it  does,  whether  we  regard  it  as 
to  the  time  spent  upon  it,  or  as  to  the  appreciation  of 
Ilim  above  all  things,  or  as  to  the  proportion  of  our 
numberless  actions  which  is  for  Him,  or  as  to  our  pre- 
ference of  Him  when  His  claims  clash  with  others, 
or  as  to  the  degree  of  application  which  we  bestow  on 
what  we  really  do  for  Him.  O  look  at  all  this  by  the 
moonlight  of  Gethsemane,  or  measure  it  with  the  Way 
of  the  Cross,  or  confront  it  with  the  abandonment  of 
Calvary  !  Turn  upon  it  the  light  of  the  great  love 
of  Creation,  whose  prodigal  munificence  and  incom- 
parable tenderness,  and  seemingly  exaggerated  com- 
passions we  have  already  contemplated  !  Can  it  be  that 
this  is  the  creature's  return  to  his  Creator,  when  the 
creature  is  holy  and  faithful  and  good,  and  that  such 
is  to  be  God's  strong  point  in  the  world,  the  paradise 
of  His  delights,  the  portion  of  His  empire  where  alle- 
giance still  is  paid  Him?  Merciful  Heaven!  can  we 
be  safe,  if  we  go  on  thus?  Are  we  really  in  a  state  of 
grace?  Is  not  the  whole  spiiitual  life  a  cruel  delusion? 
And  are  we  not  after  all  the  enemies,  and  not  the  friends, 
of  God?     0  no)   faith   comes  to  our  rescue.    All  is 

17  r 


258  OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD. 

right,  though  truly  all  is  wrong.  We  are  certainly  in 
the  way  of  salvation.  Then  we  say  once  more,  as  we 
find  ourselves  saying  many  times  a  day,  what  a  God  is 
ours,  what  incredible  patience,  what  unbounded  for- 
bearance, what  unintelligible  contentment !  Why  is  it 
that  very  shame  does  not  sting  us  to  do  more  for  God, 
and  to  love  Him  with  a  love  a  little  less  infinitely  unlike 
the  love,  with  which,  do  what  we  can,  we  cannot  hinder 
Him  from  loving  us  ? 

So  much  for  the  amount  of  our  love  of  God.  It  is 
little ;  so  little  that  it  would  be  disheartening  were  it 
not  always  in  our  own  power,  through  the  abundance 
of  His  grace  to  make  that  little  more.  Let  us  now 
at  any  rate  console  ourselves  by  looking  at  the  manner 
and  spirit  in  which  we  pay  to  God  this  little  love. 
Love,  like  other  things,  has  certain  rules  and  measures 
of  its  own.  It  has  certain  habits  and  characteristics. 
It  proceeds  upon  known  principles  which  belong  to 
its  nature.  It  acts  differently  from  justice,  because 
it  is  love  and  not  justice.  It  does  not  obey  the  same 
laws  as  fear,  simply  because  it  is  not  fear  but  love, 
Everyone  knows  the  marks  of  true  love.  They  are 
•readiness,  eagerness,  generosity,  swiftness,  unselfishness, 
vigilance,  exclusiveness,  perseverance,  exaggeration. 
In  all  these  respects,  except  the  last,  our  divine  love 
■must  at  once  resemble  and  surpass  our  human  love.  la 
the  last  respect  it  cannot  do  so,  because  God  is  so  infi- 
nitely beautiful  and  good  that  anything  like  exaggera- 
tion or  excess  in  the  love  of  Him  is  impossible.  The 
Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus  is  the  model  of  Divine  Love. 
The  Immaculate  Heart  of  Mary  ascertains  for  us  the 
amazing  heights  of  love  at  which  a  simple  creature  can 
arrive  by  correspondence  to  the  grace  of  God.  The 
•Saints  are  all  so  many  samples  of  divine  love  in  some 


OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD.  259 

ODe  or  more  of  its  special  characteristics  and  depart- 
ments. We  know  then  precisely  the  manner  and  spirit 
in  which  we  are  to  love  God.  Let  us  see  how  far  our 
practice  squares  with  our  theory. 

Is  the  following  an  unkind  picture  of  ourselves  ?  We 
serve  God  grudgingly,  as  if  lie  were  exacting.  We  are 
slow  to  do  what  we  know  He  most  desires,  because  it  is 
an  effort  to  ourselves.  We  cling  to  our  own  liberty,  and 
we  feel  the  service  of  God  more  or  less  of  a  captivity. 
Oar  whole  demeanour  and  posture  in  religion  is  not  as 
if  we  felt  God  was  asking  too  little,  or  as  if  we  were 
most  anxious  to  do  more  than  He  required.  We  serve 
Him  intermit i ingly,  though  perseverance  is  what  He 
60  specially  desires.  We  have  fits  and  starts;  pious 
weeks  or  devout  months,  and  then  times  of  remissness, 
of  effort,  of  coldness :  then  a  fresh  awakening,  a  new 
start ;  and  then  a  slackening  again.  It  is  as  if  loving 
God  went  against  the  grain,  as  if  we  had  to  constrain 
ourselves  to  love  Him,  as  if  it  was  an  exertion  which 
could  not  be  kept  up  continuously,  as  if  human  holiness 
could  never  be  any  tiling  better  >han  endless  beginnings, 
and  trials  which  are  always  falling  short  of  the  mark. 
Thus  we  also  love  God  rarely,  under  pressure,  on  great 
occasions,  at  startling  times,  or  when  we  have  sensible 
need  of  Him.  All  this  looks  as  if  we  did  not  love  Him 
for  His  own  sake,  but  for  ourselves,  or  for  fear,  or 
because  it  is  prudent  and  our  duty.  There  is  unmis- 
takeably  a  want  of  heart  in  the  whole  matter. 

Have  we  ever  done  any  one  action  which  we  are 
quite  confident  was  done  solely  and  purely  for  the  love 
of  God?  If  we  have,  it  has  not  been  often  repeated. 
We  are  conscious  to  ourselves  that  there  is  a  great 
admixture  of  earthly  motives  in  our  service  of  God.  It 
is  astonishing  what  an  amount  of  vain-glory  and  self- 


SCO  OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD, 

seeking  there  is  in  our  love  of  Him.  We  are  also 
perfectly  and  habitually  aware  of  this ;  and  yet,  which 
is  even  more  astonishing,  we  are  quiet  and  unmoved. 
It  breeds  in  us  no  holy  desperation,  nor  does  it  inspire 
us  to  any  vehement  and  determined  struggles  to  get 
rid  of  the  desecrating  presence  of  this  unholy  enemy. 
Nay,  it  almost  appears  as  if  we  should  never  have 
dreamed  of  loving  God,  if  He  Himself  had  not  been 
pleased  to  command  us  to  do  so ;  and  therefore  we  do 
it  just  in  the  way  in  which  men  always  do  a  thing 
because  they  are  told,  and  which  they  would  not  have 
done  if  they  had  not  been  told.  Many  of  us  perhaps 
have  already  given  the  best  of  our  lives  to  the  world, 
and  now  it  is  the  leavings  only  which  go  to  God. 
Alas !  how  often  is  He  asked  to  drink  the  dregs  of  a 
cup  which  not  the  world  only,  but  the  devil  also, 
have  well-nigh  drained  before  Him  ;  and  with  what 
adorable  condescension  does  He  put  His  lips  to  it, 
and  dwell  with  complacency  upon  the  draught,  as  if 
it  were  the  new  wine  of  some  archangel's  first  unblem- 
ished love! 

Then  again  we  exaggerate  our  own  services,  in 
thought  if  not  in  words;  and  this  shows  itself  in  our 
demeanour.  True  love  never  thinks  it  has  done 
enough.  Its  restlessness  comes  from  the  very  uneasi- 
ness of  this  impression.  Now  this  is  not  at  all  our 
feeling  about  God.  We  do  not  look  at  things  from 
His  point  of  view.  It  is  only  by  a  painfully  acquired 
habit  of  mind  that  we  come  to  do  so.  Half  the  temp- 
tations against  the  faith,  from  which  men  suffer,  arise 
from  the  want  of  this  habit,  from  not  discerning  that 
really  the  creature  has  no  side,  no  right  to  a  point  of 
view,  but  that  God's  side  is  the  only  side,  and  the 
Creator's  point  of  view  the  creature's  only  point  of 


OUR  ACTUAL  LOVE  OF  GOD.  261 

view,  and  that  he  would  not  be  a  creature  were  it 
otherwise.  Another  unsatisfactory  6ign  is,  that,  ordi- 
narily speaking,  we  have  so  little  missionary  feeling 
about  us,  and  are  so  unconcerned  whether  sinners  are 
converted  or  whether  men  love  God  or  not.  Surely  it 
is  hard  for  true  love  to  coexist  with  an  un- missionary 
spirit.* 

But  we  all  of  us  have  times  when  we  love  God  more 

than  usual,  times  of  fervour,  of  closer  union  with  Him, 

of  momentary  love   of  suffering,   transitory  flashes  of 

things   which   are   like   the   phenomena  of  the  saints. 

They  neither  last  long  enough  nor  come  often  enough  to 

form  our  normal  state.   They  are  simply  our  best  times. 

Now  we  need  not  dwell  either  upon  their  rarity  or  their 

brevity ;  but  we  would  fain  ask  if  even  then  we  love  God 

altogether  without  reserves.    Is  nothing  kept  back  from 

Him?     Is  our  renunciation  of  self  ample  and  faultless? 

Have  we  no  secret  corner  of  our  hearts   where  some 

favourite  weakness  lurks  in  the  shade,  and  which  the 

strong  light  of  heavenly  love  has  not  blinded  to  its  own 

interests  ?     I  am  afraid  to  go  on  with  the  picture,  lest 

I  should  have  to  ask  myself  at  last,  what  is  left  of  the 

Christian  life?     But  we  have  seen  enough  to  confess 

of  our  love  of  God,  that  not  only  is  what  we  give  very 

little,   but  that  even  that  little  is  given  in  the  most 

ungraceful  and  unlover-like  of  ways.     Surely  this  is  a 

confession  not   to   be  made  by  words,  which  are  not 

equal  to  the  task,  but  only  by  silent  tears,  while  we  lie 

prostrate  before  the  Throne  of  Him,  whom,  strange  to 

say!  we  really  do  love  most   tenderly  even  while  we 

slight  Him  ! 

On  all  sides  of  us  there  are  mysteries.     Our  rela- 

•  Yet  see  the  doctrine  of  Richard  of  St.  Victor  and  Da  Ponta  quoted  ia 
Growth  in  Holiness,  chap.  vi.p.  94,  StconJ  Edition, 


262  OUR  ACTUAL  LOYE  OF  GOD. 

tions  to  God  are  full  of  them.     Our  coldness    and  His 
love,  Hi?  forbearance  and  our  petulance, — we  hardly 
know  which  is  the  most  strange,  the  most  inexplicable. 
If  we  cor.iider  attentively  how  little  we  love  God,  and 
in  what  way  we  show  it,  honesty  will  compel  us  to 
acknowledge  that  we   men    should    not   accept   such 
service  at  each  other's  hands.     "We   should   reject    it 
with   scorn.     We  should  regard  it  as  an  injury  rather 
than  as  a  service.     A  father  would  disinherit  his  son; 
a  friend  would  put  away  from  him  the  friend  of  his 
bosom,  if  his  love  were  requited  as  we  requite  the  love 
of  our  heavenly   Father.     Yet  it  is  the  ever-blessed 
God,  who  is  what  He  is,  to  whom  we,  being  what  we 
are,  dare  to  offer  this  mockery  of  worship.     Will  He 
open  heaven,  and  cast  His  fiery  bolts  upon  us,  and 
annihilate  us  for  ever,  that  we  may  be  no  longer  a 
dishonour  to  His  beautiful  creation?     Or  will  He  turn 
from  our  proffered  service  with  anger,  or  at  least  with 
a  contemptuous  indifference?     We  cannot  easily  un- 
derstand how   it  is  that  He  does  not.     Yet  on  the 
contrary   He   vouchsafes   to    accept    and   reward   our 
pitiful  affection.     But  His  very  rewards  and  blessings 
lead  us  astray;  for  we  begin  to  put  a  price   upon  our 
merits  according  to  the  greatness  of  His  recompenses 
not  according  to  the  reality  of  their  lowness;   and  we 
think  we  have  treated  Him  with  great  generosity,  and 
that  His  reward  is  to  us  only  the  proof  of  our  gener- 
osity; while  on  the  contrary  we  consider  Him  to  be. 
asking  very  much  of  us;  and  our  minds  do  not  see  His 
rights,  and  our  hearts  do  not  feel  them.     God  sees  all 
this,  and  He  makes  no  sign.     It  is  not  so  much  as  if  He 
seemed  insensible  to  our  ingratitude;  it  is  rather  as  if 
He  did  not  say  that  it  was  ingratitude  at  all.     No  love 
can  be  conceived  more  sensitive  than  that  of  Him  who 


OUR  ACTUAL  iajVE  OP  GOD.  2G3 

has  eternally  predestinated,  and  then  called  out  of 
nothing,  the  objects  of  His  choice  and  predilection. 
Vet  God  does  not  seem  to  feel  our  coldness  and  per- 
versity. Rather  He  appears  to  prize  what  we  give 
JHim,  and  to  rejoice  in  its  possession.  He  wished  it 
otherwise.  He  made  very  different  terms  at  the  outset. 
He  asked  for  far  more  than  He  has  got.  But  He  makes 
no  complaint ;  and  not  being  able  to  have  His  terms 
allowed,  He  takes  us  on  our  own. 

Is  it  possible  that  it  can  be  God  of  whom  we  are 
daring  thus  to  speak  ?  Why  do  not  all  we,  His  chil- 
dren, league  together  to  make  it  up  to  Him  ?  Angels  of 
heaven !  why  is  your  worship  of  that  Blessed  Majesty 
aught  else  but  tears  ? 


264 


CHAPTER  V. 

IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVEt 

Signore,  volete  dare  per  quello,  che  facciamo  per  voi,  plu  di  quello  che 
potete  fare;  e  non  potendo  voi  fare  voi  medesimo,  restate  solamente 
soddisfatto  con  dare  voi  medesimo:  stnpendo  caso!  che  il  Creatore  non 
ritrovi  in  tutta  la  sua  onnipotenza,  cosa,  che  possa  fare  in  aggradimento 
dl  qualsivoglia  cosa,  che  fa  un  giusto  per  suo  amore,    Nuremberg, 

When  angels  offer  the  prayers  of  men  with  incense 
in  their  golden  thuribles,  there  are  none  which  rise  up 
before  the  throne  of  God  with  a  sweeter  or  more  accept- 
able fragrance  than  the  murmurs  and  complaints  of 
loving  souls,  because  God  is  not  loved  sufficiently. 
Everywhere  on  earth,  where  the  true  love  of  God  is 
to  be  found,  there  also  is  this  peaceful  and  blessed 
unhappiness  along  with  it.  In  many  a  cloister,  by  the 
sea  shore,  or  on  the  mountain  top,  in  the  still  forest  or 
the  crowded  city,  there  are  many  who  in  the  retirement 
of  their  cell,  or  before  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  are  sigh- 
ing with  the  sweet  grief  of  love,  because  men  love  God 
so  coldly  and  so  unworthily.  There  are  many  amid 
the  distractions  of  the  world,  and  who  appear  to  be 
walking  only  in  its  ways,  who  have  no  heavier  weight 
upon  their  hearts  than  the  neglect,  abandonment,  and 
unrequited  love  of  God.  Through  the  long  cold  night, 
or  during  the  noisy  day,  incessantly  as  from  a  tranquil 
holy  purgatory,  the  sounds  of  this  plaintive  sorrow, 
this  blessedly  unhappy  love,  rise  up  into  the  ear  of  God. 
Some  tremble  with  horror  of  the  sins  which  are  daily 
committed  against  His  holy  law.    Some  are  saddened 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.         265 

because  those  who  by  their  faith  know  God  so  well, 
love  Him  with  such  carelessness  and  pusillanimity. 
Some,  who  are  wont  to  make  His  resplendent  attributes 
the  objects  of  their  daily  contemplation,  murmur  be- 
cause they  see  nowhere  on  the  earth,  not  even  among 
the  saints,  anything  worthy  to  be  called  love  of  so  great 
and  infinite  a  goodness.  Others  with  meek  petulance 
expostulate  with  God,  because  He  hides  Himself,  and 
does  not  constrain  souls  to  love  Him  by  open  manifes- 
tations of  His  surpassing  beauty:  while  others  mourn 
over  their  own  cold  hearts,  and  pine  to  love  God  better 
than  they  do.  There  are  even  innocent  children  who 
weep  because  they  feel,  what  as  yet  they  can  hardly 
know,  that  men  are  leaving  so  cruelly  unrequited  the 
burning  love  of  God.  All  these  sighs  and  tears,  all 
these  complaints  and  expostulations,  all  this  heavy- 
hearted  silence  and  wounded  bleeding  love, — all  is 
rising  up  hourly  to  the  Majesty  on  high,  not  unmingled 
with  the  sharper  sounds  of  active  penance  and  expiatory 
mortifications.  It  is  at  once  intercession  and  thanksgiv- 
ing and  petition  and  satisfaction,  and  our  ^Heavenly 
Father  loves  the  sweet  violence  which  this  beautiful 
sorrow  is  doing  to  Him. 

Meanwhile  God  Himself  vouchsafes  to  appear  con- 
tented, and  even  more  than  contented  with  the  poverty 
of  our  love.  He  seems  to  be  satisfied  with,  that  in  us, 
which  is  very  far  from  satisfying  ourselves.  Whether 
it  is  that  His  clear  view  of  our  exceeding  nothingness 
6  imulates  His  compassion  to  make  allowances  for  us 
which  we  have  no  right  to  make  for  ourselves,  or 
whether  to  the  incomprehensible  affection  of  a  Creator 
there  is  some  inestimable  value  in  the  least  and  low*  st 
offering  of  the  creature's  love,  so  it  is,  that  His  magnifi- 
cence repay 8  our  love  with  rewards  of  the  most  over- 


266        IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

whelming  grandeur,  while  at  the  same  time  His  justice 
and  wisdom  contrive  that  these  immense  rewards  should 
be  in  exact  and  varying  proportion  with  our  merits. 
He  alone  seems  to  be  above  the  feeling  of  that  which 
His  servants  feel  so  deeply,  their  own  coldness  and  in- 
gratitude to  Him.   Yet  we  know  that  none  can  measure 
so  unerringly  the  hatefulness  of  our  iniquity  ;  none  can 
estimate   so  truly   the    glorious   abundance   of  strong 
celestial  grace  which  is  hourly  conferred  upon  us ;  none 
can  know  Him  as  He  knows  Himself,  and    therefore 
none  can  abhor  sin  as  He  abhors  it,  or  comprehend,  as 
He  comprehends  it,  the  insult  of  our  lukewarm  love. 
Does  it  not  even  come  to  ourselves  sometimes  in  prayer, 
when  we  have  been  dwelling  long  upon  some  one  beau- 
tiful attribute  of  the  Divine  Nature,  to  ask  ourselves  in 
amazement,  how  it  is  that  God  can  possibly  forgive  sin, 
and  forgiving  it,  can  look  so  completely  as  if  He  had  for- 
gotten it  as  well,  and  even  seem  to  esteem  us  more  when 
we  rise  from  a  shameful  fall,  than  if  we  had  stood 
upright  in  His  grace  and  our  integrity  all  the  while  ? 

Yet  our  best  notions  of  God  are  unspeakably  unwor- 
thy of  Him.  When  we  get  views  of  His  perfections 
which  thrill  through  us  like  a  new  life,  and  throw  open 
to  our  minds  grand  vast  worlds  of  truth  and  wonder, 
these  rajs  of  light  are  full  of  dust  and  dimness,  and  do 
not  approach  to  the  real  beauty  of  the  Creator.  Thug 
it  is  that  we  cannot  take  a  step  in  this  land  of  divine 
love,  but  mysteries  start  up  around  us  far  more  hard  to 
solve  than  the  deepest  difficulties  of  scholastic  theology. 
We  are  getting  new  graces  every  day,  crowning  our  cor- 
respondence to  the  grace  we  had  before.  We  are  con- 
tinually drinking  fresh  draughts  of  immortal  life  in 
the  Sacraments,  which  we  are  allowed  to  repeat  and 
lenew  day  after  day.    But  we  are  so  accustomed  to  all 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.    2G7 

I 
this,  that  we  can  scnrcely  realize  the  miracles  of  com- 
passion and  love,  of  which  we  are  incessantly  the  objects. 
All  this  continuance  of  grace  is  a  manifestation  to  us  of 
God's  contentment  with  us.     Not  that  He  would  not 
have  us  better  than  we  are,  and  is  not  always  stimulat- 
ing us  to  higher  things.     But  He  takes  gladly  what  we 
let  Him  have;   and,   with  loving  eagerness,  not  only 
furnishes  us  with  instant  means  to  serve  Him  better, 
but  almost  anticipates  with  His  rewards  our  little  ser- 
vices.    For  the  recompense  full  often  comes  before  the 
deed,  and  as  our  good  works  are  not  sufficiently  numer- 
ous to  gratify  His  liberality,  He  is  crowning  all  day 
long  a  thousand  good  intentions  which  He  knows  will 
never  issue  in  results.     And  why?     Because  it  is  not 
so  much  works,  as  love,  for  which  He  craves.     O  the 
mystery  of  the  Divine  Recompenses !  how  is  it  to  be 
unriddled  except  by  the  satisfaction  of  the  Precious 
Blood  of  Jesus?     And  then  how  is  that  adorable  Blood- 
shedding  itself  to  be  unriddled  ?    If  the  mystery  of  a 
Contented  God,  with  His  blessed  wrath  appeased  and 
His  all-holy  justice  satisfied,  can  only  be  explained  by 
the  Cross  of  the  Incarnate  Word,  it  is  only  removing 
the  difficulty  one  step  backward ;  for  then  by  what  is 
the  Cross  itself  to  be  explained  ?     Are  we  not  for  ever 
obliged  to  take  refuge  in  Creation  as  the  grand  primal 
act  of  love,  the  fountain-head  of  all  the  divine  compas- 
sions, and  to  acknowledge  that  the  classes  of  mysteries, 
which  of  all  others  are  the  most  unfathomable,  are  those 
which  concern  the  nature,  the  degree,  and  the  perfec- 
tions of  Creative  Love  ?     O  beautiful  Abysses,  in  which 
it  is  so  sweet  to  lose  ourselves,  so  blissful  to  go  on 
sounding  them  to  all  eternity  and  never  learn  the  depths, 
and  in  musing  upon  whose  precipitous  shores  a  lovii  g 
heart  finds  heaven  even  while  on  earth  !     It  is  a  day  to 


263         IN  WHAT  WAY  GOO  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

date  from,  when  we  first  come  to  see,  that  the  very  fact 
of  God  having  created  us  is  in  itself  a  whole  magnificent 
revelation  of  eternal  love,  more  safe  to  lean  upon  than 
what  we  behold,  more  worthy  of  our  trust  than  what 
we  know,  more  utterly  our  own  than  any  other  posses- 
sion we  can  have. 

But  let  us  study  in  detail  the  way  in  which  God 
repays  that  poor  and  fitful  and  ungenerous  love  of  which 
we  ourselves  are  more  than  half  ashamed.  Let  u8 
enquire  when  He  repays  us,  with  what  He  repays  us, 
and  in  what  manner  He  repays  us.  We  shall  find  fresh 
motives  of  love  at  every  step  in  the  enquiry. 

First  of  all,  when  does  He  repay  us?  He  does  not 
keep  us  waiting  for  our  recompenses.  We  know  well 
that  one  additional  degree  of  sanctifying  grace  is  of 
more  price  than  all  tha  magnificence  of  the  universe., 
The  objects  upon  which  we  often  fasten  our  affections  or 
employ  our  ambition,  during  long  years  of  concentrated 
vigilance  and  persevering  toil,  are  less  worthy  of  our 
endeavours  and  less  precious  in  the  possession,  than  one 
single  particle  of  sanctifying  grace.  Yet,  let  us  suppose 
that  a  momentary  temptation  has  assailed  us,  and  we 
have  resisted  it,  or  that  we  have  lifted  up  our  hearts  for 
an  instant  in  faith  and  love  to  God,  or  that  for  the  sake 
of  Christ  we  have  done  some  trifling  unselfish  thing, 
scarcely  has  the  action  escaped  us  before  then  and 
instantly  the  heavens  have  opened  invisibly,  and  the  force 
of  heaven,  the  participation  of  the  Divine  Nature,  the 
beauty,  power,  and  marvel  of  sanctifying  grace,  has 
passed  in  viewless  flight  and  with  insensible  ingress  into 
our  soul.  There  is  not  the  delay  of  one  instant. 
Moreover  these  ingresses  of  grace  are  beyond  number, 
and  yet,  if  we  correspond  and  persevere,  the  influence 
and  result  of  each  one  of  them  is  simply  eternal.     Each 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.         269 

additional  degree  of  sanctifying  grace  represents  and 
■ecnrefl  an  additional  degree  of  glory  in  heaven,  if  only 
we  correspond  thereto,  and  persevere  unto  the  end.  At 
the  moment  in  which  we  receive  each  additional  degree 
of  sanctifying  grace  our  soul  is  clothed  before  God  in  a 
new  and  glorious  beauty  which  a  moment  ago  it  did  not 
possess. 

The  communication  of  sanctifying  grace  to  the  soul 
is  itself  a  marvellous  and  mysterious  disclosure  of  the 
divine  magnificence  and  liberality.  It  is  assuredly 
most  probable,  if  it  is  not  certain,*  that  each  addi-. 
tional  degree  of  sanctifying  grace  is  given  the  very 
instant  it  is  merited  by  our  actions,  and  is  not 
reserved  as  an  accumulated  reward  to  be  bestowed 
upon  us  when  we  enter  into  glory.  But  each  addi- 
tional degree  of  sanctifying  grace  is  not  a  mere  enrich- 
ing of  us  with  the  created  gifts  of  God,  but  it  is  a 
real  and  new  mission  to  our  souls  of  the  Second  and 
Third  Persons  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  together  with 
the  unsent  coming  to  us  and  dwelling  with  us  of  the 
Father  Himself.  It  is  not  only  that  the  Three  Divine 
Persons  are  always  in  us  by  essence,  presence,  and 
power ;  but  by  sanctifying  grace  They  are  in  us  in  a 
new  and  special  and  most  real,  though  deeply  myste- 
rious way,  and  in  the  case  of  the  particular  graces  of 
the  sacraments,  They  are  with  us  for  particular  ends, 
effects  and  purposes.  By  an  invisible  mission  this 
real  indwelling  of  the  Divine  Persons  assumes  a  new 
mode  of  existence  at  every  one  of  the  multitudinous 
additions    and  degrees   of    sanctifying    grace,   a   new 

*  Cf  Suarez  de  Beatitudine,  Dlsp.  vi.  Sect.  I.  n.  13.    Also  Dc  Gratia,  lib.  ix. 

cap  iii.  23.     Dico  ergo  gradu-*  omnes  gratiaa,  quos  Justus  per  actus  remissos 

charitatis  meretur,  statim  sine  ulla  dilatione.  nullave  spectata  dLspositione, 

illi  conferri,  ac  provide  justura  non  solum  per  omnes  hos  actus  mcreri,  6ed 

fctium  statim  consequi  t>use  gratire  augmenturu.    Lut  it  is  a  question. 


270    IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

mode  of  existence  which  it  is  hardly  possible  to  explain 
in  words,  as  on  the  one  hand  it  implies  no  manner  of 
change  or  motion  in  Them,  while  on  the  other  there 
is  from  Tliem  some  contact  with  the  soul  more  per- 
sonal, more  intimate,  more  real,  than  that  which  ex- 
isted but  a  moment  before.  If  we  are  to  allow  some 
theologians  to  say  that  where  the  gifts  of  grace  more 
concern  the  intellect,  there  is  a  mission  of  the  Son, 
and,  where  they  more  concern  the  will,  a  mission  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  yet  we  cannot  hold  any  mission 
of  the  Son  which  is  not  also  a  mission  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  nor  any  mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
which  is  not  also  a  mission  of  the  Son,  nor  any 
mission  of  the  Two,  apart  and  separate  from  the 
coming  and  indwelling  of  the  Father.  If  it  is  hard  to 
understand  this,  it  is  also  extremely  beautiful,  and 
ought  to  fill  us  with  fresh  love  of  God,  and  a  more 
loving  wonder  at  His  bounty  towards  His  creatures. 
This  doctrine  of  divine  mission  with  each  degree  of 
sanctifying  grace  shows  us  how  sanctifying  grace  is  a 
substantial  and  real  anticipation  of  heaven,  that  even 
now  it  is  Himself,  and  not  His  created  gifts  only,  that 
God  gives  to  us,  and  that  He  is  our  own  God,  our  own 
possession,  from  the  very  first  moment  of  our  justifica- 
tion. Moreover  there  is  something  to  overawe  us  with 
the  sense  of  the  divine  intimacy  with  us,  and  to  make 
us  glow  with  love  even  in  our  awe,  to  reflect  that  this 
inexplicable  operation,  this  celestial  mansion  in  our 
souls,  this  new  and  ever  new  mission  of  the  Divine 
Persons,  which  we  cannot  explain  and  can  only  dimly 
apprehend,  is  actually  being  reflected  in  us,  many,  many 
times  a  day,  while  we  are  in  a  state  of  grace,  and  seek- 
ing in  our  actions  the  glory  and  the  will  of  God.*    Nay, 

*  Billuai  t  de  Tiinitat,  vi.  4. 


IN  WHAT  TV  AY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.         271 

SO  substantially  are  the  Divine  Persons  present  to  the 
soul  by  Their  invisible  mission,  that  if  by  impossibility 
They  were  not  present  to  us  by  Their  immensity,  They 
would  be  so  by  reason  of  sanctifying  grace.  * 

Moreover  all  through  life  our  mere  preservation  of 
the  gift  of  faith  entitles  us  always  to  have  the  grace  of 
God  at  hand  when  it  is  wanted,  preventing  and  antici- 
pating the  rapid  and  subtle  movements  of  our  spiritual 
enemies;  and  even  when  it  is  not  especially  wanted, 
because  we  are  not  under  the  pressure  of  circumstances 
or  in  critical  occasions,  it  is  most  likely  that  we  are 
always  insensibly  receiving  grace,  except  when  we  sleep; 
so  that  we  live  in  a  world  of  grace,  and  breathe  its 
atmosphere  unconsciously,  thinking  as  little  of  it  as  of 
the  air  we  breathe  in  order  to  support  our  natural  life. 
The  Creator  is  as  it  were  bound  to  assist  His  puny 
creatures:  but  He  is  not  bound,  unless  by  the  excess 
of  His  own  goodness,  to  be  always  near  us,  in  the 

*  There  is  no  province  of  theology  where  language  proves  Itself  less 
adequate  to  the  task  of  expressing  doctrine,  than  that  which  concerns  the 
relation  of  the  Divine  Persons  to  created  things.  For  on  the  one  hand  theology- 
is  clear  as  to  the  reality  of  such  relations,  and  on  the  other  hand  it  is  equally 
clear  as  to  the  axiom  that  the  external  works  of  the  Holy  Trinity  are  indivisi- 
ble. There  is  a  beauty,  which  we  can  only  half  see,  about  these  relations, 
which,  to  judge  from  the  explanations  of  theologians,  baffles  words,  or  a3 
soon  as  it  is  put  into  words  seems  dangerous  to  dogma.  See  Schwetz.  Theol. 
Dogmat.  i.  361.  The  following  passage  from  S.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  is  the. 
more  remarkable  as  coming  from  a  post-nicene  father: 

Kx!  itrn  (a\v  xxd'  uTotrrxinv  Ihxfo  trcXvruXuos  o  ■xxtt.o,  oftotu;  Ss  xx)  o  vlor, 
xx)  to  -xviZu-x-  xXk'  it  ivbf  tuv  dttotx.xtr/x.ivcuv  l^iou^yixh  6ikr,<ris,  i<f  'otu  th$  x* 
XiyoiTO  yivio-Qxi  tu^ov  ivi^ytiux  pzv  xutoZ,  x\r,v  hx  xxo-v;  kzirc"  T^> 
Oioty.tos,  xx)  ryt  v*l{  xt'io-iv  Itrriv  oltrlxs  xroTiXio-px,  xonov  p\v  ucrrl^  r., 
:r?.r.v  xx)  IXlxSl  \xxotoi  Wftffirm  Vfixov,  u;  ttx  r$iuv  vTOfTxirioiv  kt^toi  x* 
xx)  ihxSf  txxffrr),  xoXuriXiiaii  l^oucvxxO'  ixur/jv.  ivi'pyu  Teiyx°oZv  i  vxrr,*, 
a.\Xx  2/  vloZ  iv  rviCfjLXTi,  Ut^yCi  xx)  b  vios-  iXX  us  SZuxpi;  roZ  ffWTgSf,  t$ 
auroZ  ri  xxi  Iv  xutu  tooufx.no;  xx6'  Oraf^lt  Yoix'rx  tvi'yn  xxt  to  xhvux, 
wnZfMi  yxf  IfTi  tou  Txrfb;,  xU)  t«u  ni'ey,  to  xoXvTo-j'yiy.ov. — o.  Cjl'lUi 
Alexandr.  de  S.  Trinit.  dialog,  si* 


272        IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE., 

Christian  sense  of  His  being  nigh  unto  all  them  who 
call  upon  Him.  This  nearness  is  His  present  and 
instantaneous  reward  for  our  unworthy  service  of 
Him.  Joy  and  sorrow  have,  each  of  them,  their  own 
wants  and  trials  and  peculiar  laws ;  and  who  has  not 
experienced  the  ready  goodness  of  God  in  both  of 
them?  Life  and  earth  and  the  world  abound  with 
joy,  even  to  running  over.  Happiness  sweeps  the 
whole  earth  with  its  gay  illuminations,  just  as  the 
strong  swift  sunshine  throws  its  unimpeded  mantle  over 
hill  and  dale,  and  land  and  sea.  We  are  too  happy. 
Our  happiness  runs  away  with  us.  Its  superabundance 
will  hardly  let  us  sober  ourselves,  or  steady  our  views 
of  this  transitory  world.  Joys  are  thousandfold;  we 
cannot  count  them ;  their  name  is  legion :  we  can 
hardly  class  them  by  their  kinds.  They  run  out  from 
beneath  the  throne  of  God,  and  electrify  millions  of  souls 
the  world  over  at  the  same  moment.  Our  very  life  is 
joy,  if  we  will  only  be  honest  enough  to  acknowledge 
it  to  God  and  to  ourselves.  The  unhappiest  man  on 
earth  has  from  sunrise  to  sunset  more  satisfaction  than 
unhappincss.  It  is  seldom  he  would  even  give  up  his 
own  self  and  take  another,  still  less  forfeit  the  pleasure 
of  living  altogether.  What  a  Creator  must  ours  be,  in 
whose  world  merely  to  live  is  a  stronger  joy  than  any 
temporal  misery,  however  unparalleled,  which  can  befall 
us  !  And  how  marvellously  God  multiplies  His  graces 
upon  us  in  our  joy,  opening  our  hearts  to  love  Him  more 
g  nerously,  enlightening  our  minds  to  see  Him  more 
clearly,  quickening  our  gratitude,  giving  us  a  surpris- 
ing elasticity  in  our  spiritual  exercises,  and  taking 
away  the  dangerous  alluring  beauty  of  earth's  idols  by 
the  very  strength  of  the  gladsome,  disenchanting  light 
•which  He  throws  upon  them,    But,  above  all,  in  joy  wo  - 


IK  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.    273 

full  often  receive  a  double  portion  of  that  dear  grace, 
which  is  well-nigh  all  our  salvation,  the  grace  of  true 
condition;  for  there  is  no  contrition,  which,  for  strength, 
vhidness,  and  endurance,  is  like  the  contrition  of  a  joy- 
ous man. 

Sorrow,  too,  when  borne  even  with  ordinary  patience, 
has  its  own  rewards  from  God  at  once,  rewards  both  of 
nature  and  of  grace.  What  can  be  more  beautiful  than 
the  way  in  which  lie  calculates  our  weakness,  and  then 
measures  out  our  sorrows,  and  then  rains  vehement 
6torms  of  grace  upon  our  fainting  wills!  But  we  only 
see  this  now  and  then,  and  in  dusky  indistinct  perspec- 
tive. In  eternity  we  shall  behold  our  past  life  in  God, 
and  what  a  thrilling  revelation  it  will  be  !  But  is  not 
this  undeniably  true  of  ourselves,  so  far  as  we  have 
gone  in  life,  that  we  have  had  far  less  sorrow  and  pain 
tli an  we  are  quite  conscious  we  could  bear,  that  our 
powers  of  bearing  have  been  sensibly  augmented  while 
the  cross  was  on  us,  that  we  can  look  bick  upon  chap- 
ters of  our  past  life  about  which  we  distinctly  feel  that 
with  our  present  grace  we  could  not  live  them  over 
again,  that  the  fruits  of  sorrow  have  always  been  ten- 
fold brighter  in  the  issue  than  the  darkness  was  ever 
deepened  in  the  process,  and  finally  that  in  the  retro- 
spect the  very  sorrows  themselves  have  been  full  of 
joys,  exotic  joys  whose  large  leaves  and  waxen  blossoms 
and  long-lasting  perfumes  show  that  they  were  grown 
in  heaven  and  not  on  earth?  Yet  these  are  only  the 
present  rewards  of  grief,  the  earthly  blessings  of  those 
who  mourn  !  But  look  into  the  wonderful  faces  of 
those  rings  of  saints  who  encompass  the  throne  on  high ; 
feed  your  soul  on  the  grave  intellectual  beauty  which 
19  depicted  there,  the  winning  look  of  blameless  purity, 
the  impassioned  intensity  of  their  celestial  love.    With 


274        IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

most  of  them  it  was  sorrow  that  chastened  them  into 
that  transcendent  loveliness,  sorrow  that  piloted  them 
to  that  happy  shore,  sorrow  that  put  those  jewelled 
crowns  upon  their  heads,  sorrow,  keen  and  deep  and 
long,  that  unveiled  for  them  the  ever-beaming  counte- 
nance of  God!  0  magnificent  Creator  !  where  hast  Thou 
left  room  for  our  disinterested  love,  when  everywhere 
it  seems  as  though  Thou  hadst  made  our  interests  take 
precedence  of  Thine  own  ? 

Look  at  death,  which  is  a  simple  punishment !  Can 
a  created  intelligence  conceive  of  anything  more  terri- 
ble than  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  God  for  the  single 
solitary  purpose  of  being  punished  ?  And  we  might 
have  thought  that  death  would  be  like  this,  being  the 
firstborn  child  of  sin,  from  which  not  even  the  Immacu- 
late Mother  might  be  exempt.  Yet  how  should  we 
have  miscalculated  the  love  of  God!  The  deaths  of 
His  servants  are  among  the  most  valued  jewels  of  His 
crown.  They  are  among  the  best  possessions  which 
He  holds  in  right  of  His  creative  love.  "We  know  bub 
little  of  the  sights  and  sounds,  the  tastes  and  touches, 
of  that  last  dark  passage.  There  is  a  shroud  of  seem- 
ing dishonour  as  well  as  mystery  thrown  around  thafe 
dread  event.  But  we  know  that  in  it  men  live  whole 
lives  in  one  short  hour,  and  accumulate  experiences 
which  pass  our  understanding  both  for  number,  rapidity; 
and  truth.  We  know  that  grand  act  has  peculiar  needs, 
peculiar  distresses,  and  that  the  invisible  and  visible 
world  forget  their  boundaries  at  the  deathbed,  and 
war  together  in  dread  conflict,  of  which  for  the  most 
part  the  dying  eye  is  the  sole  spectator.  If  we  think 
long  on  death,  we  shall  come  to  wonder  how  it  is  that 
any  one  can  die  calmly ;  the  interests  at  stake  are  so 
I  rrific  the  moment  so  decisive,  the  horrors  so  thickly 


IN  V>HAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.         275 

strewn,  the  natural  helplessness  so  complete.     A  whole 
world  is  sensibly  sinking  and  giving  way  under  us,  and 
there  is  nothing   but  blackness,  space,  and  the  arms  of 
God.    Who  can  dare  to  fall  through  without  a  shudder  ? 
Yet    when    are    God's    graces    and    indulgences    more 
numerous,    more  triumphant,  more  accessible,  than  in 
that  dreadful  hour  ?     Grace   makes  a  very  sunset  of 
what  to  nature  is  the  most  impenetrable  darkness,  and 
the  plaintive  strains  of  the  Miserere  merge  in  spite  of 
our   humility   into   songs   of  triumph;    for   the  walls 
between  the   dying   soul  and  the  heavenly    Jerusalem 
are  so  nearly  fretted  through,  that   the  loud  alleluias 
6urprise  and  distract  the  contrite  love  whose  eyes  are 
closing  on  the  Crucifix.     The  creature's  change  is  very 
dear   to    the    Creator.      Precious   in  the  sight  of  the 
Lard  are  the  deaths  of   His  Saints.      Listen   to   this 
beautiful  story  from  the   revelations    of  St.  Gertrude. 
She  heard  the  preacher  in  a  sermon  urge  most  strongly 
the  absolute  o[  ligation  of  dying  persons  to  love  God 
Bupremely,  and  to  repent  of  their  sins  with  true  con- 
trition founded  on  the  motive  of  love.      She  thought 
it  a  hard  saying,  and  exaggeratedly  stated,  and  she 
murmured  within  herself  that  if  so  pure  a  love  were 
reeded,  few  indeed  died  well ;  and  a  cloud  came  over 
tier  mind  as  she  thought  of  this.     But   God  Himself 
vouchsafed  to  speak   to  her,  and  dispel  her  trouble. 
He  said  that  in  that  last  conflict,  if  the  dying  were 
persons  who  had  ever  tried  to  please  Him  and  to  live 
good  lives,  He  disclosed  Himself  to  them  as  so  infinitely 
beautiful   and  desirable,  that   love  of  Him  penetrated 
into  the  innermost  recesses  of  their  souls,  so  that  they 
made  acts  of  true  contrition  from  the  very  force  of  their 
love  of  Him  :  which  propension  of  Mine,  He  vouchsafed 
to  add,  thus  to  visit  them  in  that  moment  of  death* 


276        IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OTJR  LOVE. 

I  wish  My  elect  to  know,  and  I  desire  it  to  be  preached 
and  proclaimed,  that  among  My  other  mercies  this  also 
may  have  a  special  place  in  men's  remembrance.*  Let 
us  then  tell  each  other  this  sweet  doctrine,  that  our 
hearts  may  burn  more  and  more  with  love  of  so  com- 
passionate a  God. 

Now  all  these  are  present  rewards,  ways  in  which 
God  repays  on  earth  our  love  of  Him.  They  are  but; 
samples  of  what  is  incessant,  abundant,  superfluous,  all 
through  life.  Every  one's  mercies  are  so  great  that 
they  are,  to  him  at  least,  rightly  viewed,  strange,  won- 
derful, and  unexpected.  God  tries  our  faith,  and  seems 
to  delight  in  trying  it,  by  the  very  reduplication  of  Hia 
benefits.  But  after  all,  this  life  is  not  the  time  of  His 
recompenses.  He  does  not  profess  to  give  us  our  wages 
here.  He  warns  us  not  to  expect  them.  Is  it  then  that 
His  love  is  so  great,  that  He  cannot  help  Himself,  and 
that  His  Nature  is  under  the  blessed  necessity  of  loving 
and  of  giving  ?  Or  is  it  that  these  mercies  are  only  the 
casual  drops  which  are  spilled  from  the  overflowing  cup 
prepared  for  us  in  heaven  ?  Oh  even  the  most  desolate 
of  men  may  be  so  sure  of  His  paternal  love,  that  they 
may  remember  that  eternity  can  be  no  long  way  off,  anil 
will  repay  the  waiting  ! 

But  if  the  promptitude  of  His  payment  is  in  itself  a 
proof  of  the  greatness  of  God's  love,  still  more  strongly 
is  that  consoling  fact  brought  out  when  we  consider  with 
what  He  pays  us.  The  bkssings  of  nature,  the  gifts  of 
grace,  the  rewards  of  glory,— who  is  sufficient  to  declare 
the  number,  the  beauty,  the  greatness,  and  the  wonder 
of  these  things?  There  are  three  vast  kingdoms,  three 
magnificent  creations,  for  so  they  might  be  called,  which 
arc  simple  expressions  of  the  vastness  of  the  Creator's 
*■  Ap.  Pennequin.    Isagoge  ad  Aiaorem  Divinum,  p.  43. 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.    277 

love.  They  cannot  enrich  Him.  They  are  not  needed 
to  His  bliss.  They  add  nothing  to  what  He  possesses 
already.  His  mercy  contrives  to  reap  some  little  har- 
vest of  accidental  glory  from  them,  but  it  is  at  the 
expense  of  endless  outrage,  not  only  of  His  justice,  but 
even  of  His  compassion.  They  are  the  product  of  His 
love  of  the  creature,  our  property  rather  than  His, 
almost  more  our  dominion  than  His  own. 

In  the  kingdom  of  nature  there  are  three  vast  pro- 
vinces or  separate  worlds,  which  are  full  of  the  most 
exquisite  enjoyment  to  the  creature;  and  we  speak  only 
of  enjojTiients,  which,  if  through  our  frailty  they  are 
dangerous  as  stealing  our  hearts  from  God,  are  yet  alto- 
gether without  reproach  of  sin.  The  physical  world  is 
full  of  God's  rewards.  Life  is  itself  a  joy.  But  what 
shall  we  say  of  the  abounding  sense  of  health  and 
vigour,  which  they  who  enjoy  it  the  most  abundantly 
can  hardly  value  at  its  legitimate  price?  Yet  to  one, 
whose  head  is  always  aching,  whose  limbs  have  always 
in  them  some  lurking  pain,  and  whose  languor  and 
feebleness  is  all  day  long  playing  the  traitor  to  the 
activity  of  his  mind  or  the  energy  of  his  will,  the  sense 
of  health,  when  it  comes,  is  almost  like  a  miracle.  There 
is  the  surpassing  beauty  of  scenery,  the  grandeur  of  the 
mountains,  the  sublimity  of  the  sea,  the  variety  of  fer- 
tile landscape,  the  rain,  the  wind,  the  sunshine,  an  1  the 
storm.  Every  sense  is  an  avenue  of  perpetual  pleasure, 
which,  if  we  will,  can  raise  the  mind  to  God,  and  in- 
flame our  hearts  with  love.  If  we  except  the  irregulari- 
ties which  sin  has  introduced  into  the  physical  world,  and 
which  manifestly  form  no  part  of  the  system,  the  whole  of 
it  is  simple  pleasure  and  enjoyment,  an  emanation  from  the 
everlasting  and  inexhaustible  gladness  of  the  Most  High. 

Bat  the  pleasures  of  the  intellectual  world  are  jet 


278   IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

more  wonderful.  Can  any  pleasure  be  more  exquisite 
than  the  sensible  exercise  of  our  mental  faculties?  The 
variety,  the  multitude,  the  depth,  the  rapidity,  the  inter- 
weaving of  our  thoughts,  are  full  of  boundless  enjoy- 
ment, leading  us  through  realms  and  realms  of  truth 
and  beauty,  and  charming  us  at  every  turn  with  some 
enchanting  discovery.  Through  some  minds  the  pure 
delight  of  poetry  thrills  with  feelings  of  the  most  inde- 
scribable nature.  \Vuh  others  the  sweet  skilful  strains 
of  music  wind  into  the  uttermost  recesses  of  their  souls, 
with  a  beauty  which  is  sometimes  so  gifted  as  almost  to. 
win  back  the  reason  that  has  already  deserted  its  throne. 
To  others  form  and  colour,  painting,  statuary,  and 
architecture,  are  like  copious  fountains  of  power  and 
enjoyment  streaming  into  them  abundantly  for  ever. 
"With  many  the  labour  of  composition  is.  only  a  pain  be- 
cause of  the  very  excess  of  the  pleasure,  which  is  more 
than  they  can  bear.  The  investigation  of  truth  is  only 
at  times  weary  and  irksome,  because  our  tyrant  minds 
are  demanding  of  the  body  what  it  cannot  give.  No 
more  can  be  said  of  the  pleasures  of  the  intellectual 
world  than  that  they  are  marvellous  shadows  of  the 
incomprehensible  joys  of  God  Himself. 

If  the  moral  world  seems  to  afford  a  less  variety  of 
enjoyment  than  the  intellectual,  it  far  transcends  it  in 
the  vividness  and  power  of  its  enjoyments.  The  will  is 
an  inexhaustible  mine  of  joys,  which  our  nature  seems 
to  prize  beyond  all  others.  Our  affections  are  compli- 
cated instruments  of  the  most  amazing  and  unexpected 
and  diversified  pleasures,  which  possess  our  whole  nature 
and  fulfil  it  with  satisfaction  in  a  way  which  no  other 
pleasures  do.  Human  love  sits  upon  a  throne  above  all 
other  human  joys,  and  there  is  no  one  who  ever  dreams 
of  questioning  its  rights  or  of  abating  its  prerogatives. 


W  WHAT  WAT  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.         279 

Indeed  the  joy  of  lovo  is  too  great  for  life.     It  breaks 
its  bounds,  runs  riot,  and  makes  wild  work  even  with 
the  strong  framework  of  society  and  the  destiny  of 
kingdoms.     It  fills  every  depth  in  our  nature  and  then 
runs  over,  deluging  mind  and  will,  duty  and  even  pas- 
sion.    There  is  no  abyss  sufficiently  capacious  to  hold 
the  torrents  of  love,  which  one  heart  is  able  to  out- 
pour, except  that  se3  without  horizon,  bed,  or  shore, 
the  ever-blessed  Being  of   God    Himself,  1  The   Holy 
Ghost,  the  eternally  proceeding  Spirit,  is  the  jubilee  of 
the  Father  and  the  Son ;  and  His  shadow  lies  for  ever- 
more upon  the  moral  world,  the  vast  reflecting  waters 
of  the  human  will.    As  the  physical  world  with  its  joys 
of  substance  and  being  appears  to  be  a  transcript  of  the 
Person  of  the  Eternal  Father,  and  the  intellectual  world 
with  its  light  and  laws  to  be  an  illuminated  shadow  of 
the  Person  of  the  Word,  so  does  the  moral  world,  the 
fiery  thrilling  world  of  love  and  will,  represent  Him 
who  is  the  coequal  limit  of  the  Godhead,  the  third  Per- 
son of  the  Ever-blessed  Trinity. 

Yet  these  three  worlds,  the  physical,  the  intellectual, 
and  the  moral,  are  one  world ;  and  in  their  unions, 
blendings,  borrowings,  comparisons,  and  intersections, 
we  have  so  many  fresh  sources  of  the  most  delightful 
enjoyment,  above  and  beyond  those  which  these  worlds 
furnish  in  their  separate  capacities.  Why  then  do  we 
not  worship  more  constantly  and  more  intelligently  ia 
common  daily  things  the  wisdom  of  God,  thus  lending 
itself  to  the  strong  will  of  His  goodness  in  every  depart- 
ment of  creation?  Every  orb  in  the  immeasurable 
fields  of  indistinguishable  star-dust  lies  in  the  light  of 
God's  outpoured  and  eveiflowing  joy.  Every  created 
intelligence  drinks  its  fill  of  the  fountains  of  His  glad- 
ness.   Every  instinct  of  animals  beats  with  a  pulsation 


280        IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

of  divine  enjoyment.  Every  tree  uplifts  its  head  and 
flings  out  its  branches,  every  flower  blooms  and  sheds 
sweet  odour,  every  mineral  glances  and  sparkles,  just  as 
the  clouds  sail,  and  the  waters  flow,  and  the  planet 
turns,  in  the  excess  of  the  happiness  of  God.  His  bless- 
edness lies  over  the  whole  world,  serenely  shining,  like 
the  waters  of  a  spiritual  sea  beneath  whose  transparent 
depths  all  creation  with  beautiful  distinctness  lie9.  Thu9 
in  God's  wide  world  there  is  no  room  for  sin,  no  provi- 
sion for  sorrow,  not  a  corner  for  unhappiness.  Sin  is  a 
stranger,  an  intruder,  an  enemy,  as  little  at  home  on 
earth  as  it  would  be  in  heaven.  It  is  we  who  have  in- 
troduced it  into  the  bright  and  happy  world,  we,  who 
by  the  freedom  of  our  wills,  which  were  left  at  large 
that  we  might  love  God  the  more  magnificently,  have 
broken  down  the  cloister  of  His  paradise. 

It  is  not  altogether  man's  ingratitude  which  makes 
him  forgetful  of  the  benefits  of  God.  He  Himself, 
blessed  be  His  Holy  Name !  throws  His  own  mercies 
into  the  shade,  as  well  by  multiplying  them  beyond  our 
powers  of  counting,  as  by  surpassing  and  excelling  them 
by  others.  Thus  it  is  with  the  kingdom  of  nature.  It 
is  lost  in  the  splendour  of  the  kingdom  of  grace.  Awhile 
ago  it  looked  so  bright  and  beautiful,  with  all  its  features 
so  smiling  and  its  outlines  so  soft  and  ethereal,  and  now, 
like  a  mountain-side  which  the  sunbeams  have  deserted, 
it  looks  cold  and  bare,  rugged  and  uninviting.  "We 
have  already  seen  how,  in  the  kingdom  of  grace,  God 
rewards  our  efforts  instantaneously  by  fresh  supplies  of 
greater  grace.  Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  grace  itself. 
The  gulf  between  God  and  ourselves  seems  infinite  and 
impassable;  yet  grace  bridges  it  over,  and  passes  it  with 
a  rapidity  to  which  the  speed  of  the  electric  spark  is 
weary  slowness.    By  sanctifying  grace  He  is  incessantly, 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.    231 

habitually,  powerfully,  superabundantly,  pouring   into 
us  marvellous  communications  of  His  Divine  Nature. 
Each  undulation  of  it,  as  it  reaches  and  informs   our 
souls,  is  a  greater  miracle  than  the  creation  of  the  uni* 
verse.     One  touch,  and  we  pass  from  darkness  to  light ; 
one  touch,  and  all  our  eternity  is  changed.     He  endows 
our  souls,  even  before  reason  dawns,  with  mysterious 
infused  habits  which  make  such  utterly  new  creatures 
of  us  that  the  process  can  only  be  described  as  a  being 
positively  born  again.     Besides  this,  He  plants  even  in 
the  unconscious  infant  at  the  font  seven  wonderful  gifts 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  seven  distinct  heavens   of  the  most 
beautiful  splendours  and  unearthly  powers,  in  which  lie 
hid  the  possibilities  of  the  very  highest  sanctity.     Tims 
our  souls  are  made  as  it  were  a  musical  instrument, 
worthy  that  the  hands  of  God  should  play  upon  it,  and 
out  of  which  He  can  evoke  such  melodies  of  holiness, 
such  strains  of  the  exquisite  music  of  perfection,  as  could 
ravish  the  angels  of  heaven,  even  as  the  Human  Soul  oi 
Jesus  is  ravishing  them  this  hour.     Neither  is  this  in- 
strument to  remain  unused.     The  impulses  of  the  Divine 
Will,  the  pressure  of  actual  grace,  is  ever  varying  the 
music  which  they  draw  forth,  as  the  rapid  touch  of  the 
Creator's  hand  flies  over  the  many  keys  of  the  complex 
heart  of  man ;  and  all  the  while  one  grace  is  leading  to 
another  in  wonderful  progression,  one  the  prophecy  of 
what  is  yet  to  come,  and  another  the  crown  of  what  has 
gone  before,  with  such  a  vista  of  graces  in  the  prospect 
that  no  man  ever  reaches  to  the  term.     The  day  will 
never  dawn  when  he  must  not  aspire  to  more  and  more; 
there  is  no  term  which  is  the  limit  of  the  grace  which 
God  intended  him  to  reach;  and,  however  long  it  may 
be  delayed,  death  will  find  him  full  of  beginnings,  laying 
the  foundations  of  a  new  and  better,  a  more  lofty   and 


282   IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

spacious,  fabric  than  he  had  built  before.  Most  won- 
derful too  is  it  to  behold  how  all  this  grace  elicits  and 
magnifies  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and,  while  it  sup- 
ports and  strengthens  and  almost  constrains  it,  makes  it 
all  the  while  more  undeniably,  because  more  spiritually, 
free. 

The  abundance  of  grace,  again,  is  almost  as  wonder- 
ful as  its  nature.  We  live  in  an  ocean  of  grace,  as  fishes 
live  in  the  deep  sea.  It  is  above,  beneath,  around  us, 
everywhere  and  overwhelmingly.  It  comes  in  floods, 
which  though  they  have  sudden  rises  at  times,  are 
always  floods,  and  know  no  ebb  or  intermission.  Its 
coniinuity  is  another  marvel  which  we  must  add  to  its 
abundance.  The  want  of  duly  reflecting  upon  this  is 
one  cause  of  the  pusillanimity  which  is  so  common  in 
the  spiritual  life.  Men  too  often  think  practically  that 
grace  is  like  the  theatrical  god  of  the  heathen  poet,  and 
does  not  interfere  until  it  is  wanted,  and  wanted  with 
Such  obvious  urgency  as  to  justify  even  to  an  unsuper- 
natural  apprehension  some  heavenly  interference.  This 
inadequate  conception  of  the  incessant  action  of  grace 
at  once  diminishes  their  confidence  in  God,  unnerves 
them  in  temptations,  deters  them  from  attempting 
generous  enterprises,  and  makes  them  estimate  far  too 
cheaply  their  responsibilities,  privileges,  and  possibili- 
ties. It  cannot  he  too  often  repeated  that  the  wakeful 
reason  breathes  grace,  and  lives  in  its  light,  and  leans 
on  its  support,  as  much  as  we  breathe  the  air  and  see 
by  the  daylight  and  have  the  hard  safe  crust  of  the 
planet  beneath  our  feet.  The  extent  and  universality 
of  grace,  in  the  sacraments  and  out  of  them,  in  the 
Church  and  in  order  to  the  Church,  the  way  in  which 
it  can  combine  with  so  much  that  is  false  and  evil,  and 
its  godlike  importunity,  the  very  thought  of  which  is  a 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.    2S3 

kind  of  prevision  of  our  final  perseverance, — all  these 
characteristics  of  grace  would  fill  volumes,  were  they 
treated  of  at  length.  Its  variety  too  must  not  be  for- 
gotten. If  the  saints  have  graces  which  we  hardly 
know  how  to  name  and  classify,  if  no  one  man's  grace 
is  like  another's,  what  must  we  think  of  the  wide- 
spreading  realms  of  angelical  existence,  and  the  seem- 
ingly fabulous  arithmetic  of  graces  which  we  must! 
believe  there  is  among  those  clear  far-reaching  spirits? 
Surely  if  it  is  not  hard  for  a  man  to  live  in  the  pure 
bright  air  of  heaven,  and  some  shock  of  disease  or  out- 
ward  accident  must  supervene,  to  cut  short  the  thread 
of  his  existence,  so  it  cannot  be  hard  in  this  fresh, 
buoyant,  bracing  atmosphere  of  grace  for  a  man  to  save 
his  soul,  and  it  must  be  some  danger  which  he  himself 
has  sought,  or  some  poison  which  he  has  wilfully  im- 
bibed, and  after  that  pertinaciously  refused  the  antidote, 
which  can  destroy  his  soul,  and  even  then  with  difficulty. 
A  man  must  struggle  to  be  out  of  grace,  when  grace  is 
so  around  him.  We  believe  that  in  all  things  man's 
will  is  free,  but  that  in  nothing  is  he  less  free  than  to  be 
lost  eternally. 

But  all  these  blessings  of  nature  and  of  grace  are 
only  in  an  imperfect  and  improper  sense  the  rewards  of 
the  Creator.  The  kingdom  of  glory  is  the  theatre  of 
His  recompense.  It  is  in  order  to  extend  that  king- 
dom, that  the  grace  given  us  is  so  ineffably  beyond  what 
is  due  to  our  nature.  But  how  shall  we  hope  to 
measure  the  kingdom  of  glory,  when  it  is  to  be  measur- 
ed only  by  the  Divine  Magnificence  ?  Both  a  prophet 
and  an  apostle  join  in  teaching  us  that  eye  has  not  seen, 
nor  ear  heard,  nor  man's  heart  conceived,  what  God  has 
prepared  for  them  that  love  Him.  When  the  bodies  of 
the  just  rise  at  the  general  resurrection,  with  their  senses 


284   IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

spiritualized  and  rendered  capable  of  pleasures  which 
do  not  fall  within  their  province  now,  and  with  perhaps 
many  new  senses  developed  in  the  immortal  body  which 
were  unknown  in  its  mortal  days,  the  pure  pleasures  of 
these  glorified  senses  must  be  something  quite  beyond 
the  power  of  our  imagination  to  picture  to  itself.     He 
who  knows  the  blameless  exultation  of  his  soul  when 
the  eye  has  conveyed  to  it  a  landscape  of  surpassing 
beauty,  or  whose  ear  has  thrilled  with  some  inspiriting 
or  subduing  strain  of  music,  or  who,  when  he  heard   a 
passage  of  magnificent  poetry,  felt  as  if  an  immediate 
and  extraordinary  accession  of  bold  intellectual  power 
was  given  to  him  as  he  listened,  may  at  least  indistinct- 
ly guess  the  exquisite  delights  of  the  glorified  senses  of 
the  risen  body,  or  which  is  perhaps  more  true,  under- 
stand how  their  delicacy  and  charm  must  be  beyond  our 
power  of  guessing. 

Yet  the  heavenly  joys  of  the  illuminated  understand- 
ing far  transcend  the  thrills  of  the  glorified  senses. 
The  contemplation  of  heavenly  beauty  and  of  heavenly 
truth  must  indeed  be  beyond  all  our  earthly  standards 
of  comparison.  The  clearness  and  instantaneousness  of 
all  the  mental  processes,  the  complete  exclusion  of 
error,  the  unbroken  serenity  of  the  vision,  the  facility 
of  embracing  whole  worlds  and  systems  in  one  calm, 
searching,  exhausting  glance,  the  divine  character  and 
utter  holiness  of  all  the  truths  presented  to  the  view, — 
these  are  broken  words  which  serve  at  least  to  show 
what  we  may  even  now  indistinctly  covet  in  that  bright 
abode  of  everlasting  bliss.  Intelligent  intercourse  with 
the  angelic  choirs,  and  the  incessant  transmission  of 
the  divine  splendours  through  them  to  our  minds, 
cannot  be  thought  of  without  our  perceiving  that  the 
keen  pleasures  and  deep  sensibilities  of  the  intellectual 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAY 3  OUR  LOVB.        285 

World  on  earth  are  but  poor,  thin,  unsubstantial  shadows 
of  the  exulting  immortal  life  of  our  glorified  minds  above. 
The  very  expansion  of  the  faculties  of  the  soul,  and 
the  probable  disclosure  in   it  of  many  new   faculties 
which  have  no  object  of  exercise  in  this  land  of  exile, 
are  in  themselves  pleasures  which  we  can  hardly  pic- 
ture to  ourselves.     To  be  rescued  from  all  narrowness, 
and  for  ever ;  to   possess  at   all  times   a  perfect  con- 
sciousness of  our  whole  undying  selves,  and  to  possess 
and  retain  that  self-consciousness  in  the  bright  lk'ht  of 
God;  to   feel   the   supernatural  corroborations  of  the 
light  of  glory,  securing  to  us  powers  of  contemplation 
such  as  the  highest  mystical  theology  can  only  faintly 
and  feebly  imitate;  to  expatiate  in  God,  delivered  from 
monotony  of  human  things  ;  to  be  securely  poised 
in  the  highest  flights  of  our  immense  capacities,  without 
any  sense  of  weariness,  or  any  chance  of  a  reaction  ;  who 
can  think  out  for  himself  the  realities  of  a  life  like  this? 
Yet  what  iz  all  this  compared  with  one  hour,  one 
of  earth's  short  hours,  of  the  magnificences  of  celestial 
love?     O  to  turn  our  whole  souls  upon  God,  and  souls 
thus  expanded  and  thus  glorified ;  to  have  our  affec- 
tions multiplied  and  magnified  a  thousand  fold,  and 
then  girded   up  and  strengthened  by   immortality  to 
bear  the  beauty  of  God  to  be  unveiled  before  us;  and 
even  so  strengthened,  to  be  rapt  by  it  into  a  sublime 
amazement  which  has  no  similitude  on  earth;  to  be 
carried  away  by  the  inebriating  torrents  of  love,  and 
yet  be  firm  in  the  most  steadfast  adoration  ;  to  have 
passionate  desire,  yet  without  tumult  or  disturbance ; 
to  have  the  most  bewildering  intensity  along  with  an 
unearthly  calmness  ;  to  lose  ourselves  in  God,  and  then 
find  ourselves  there  more  our  own  than  ever;  to  love 
rapturously  and  to  be  loved  again  still  more  raptor- 


286        IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

ously,  and  then  for  our  love  to  grow  more  rapturous  still, 
and  again  the  return  of  our  love  to  be  still  outstripping 
what  we  gave,  and  then  for  us  to  love  even  yet  more  and 
more  aud  more  rapturously,  and  again,  and  again,  and 
again  to  have  it  so  returned,  and  still  the  great  waters 
of  God's  love  to  flow  over  us  and  overwhelm  us  until 
the  vehemence  of  our  impassioned  peace  and  the  dar- 
ing vigour  of  our  yearning  adoration  reach  bejond  the 
sight  of   our  most  venturous  imagining; — what  is  all 
this  but  for  our  souls  to  live  a  life  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent  entrancing  extasy,  and  yet  not  be  shivered   by 
the  fiery  heat?     There  have  been  times  on  earth  when 
we  have  caught  our  own  hearts  loving  Go  1,  and  there 
was  a  flash  of  light,  and  then  a  tear,  and  after  tint  we 
lay  down  to  rest.     O  happy  that  we  were!     Worlds 
could  not  purchase  from  us  even  the  memory  of  those 
moments.     And  yet  when  we  think  of  heaven,  we  may 
own  that  we  know  not  yet  what  manner  of  thing  it  is 
to  love  the  Lord  our  God. 

Meanwhile  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  the  pure 
pleasures  of  the  glorified  senses,  or  the  delights  of  our 
illuminated  understandings,   or  the    expansion   of  our 
souls  dilated  with  immortality,  or  the  magnificences  of 
celestial  love,  can  be  of  any  price  at  all  in  our  eyes* 
seeing  that  they  are  but  the  outside  fringes  of  heaven, 
the  merest  accessories  of  our  true  beatitude.     To  see 
God  face  to  face,  as  He  is ;  to  gaze  undazzled  on  the 
Three   Divine  Persons,  cognizable  and  distinct  in  the 
burning  fires  of  their  inaccessible  splendours ;    to  be- 
hold that  long  coveted  sight,  the  endless  Generation 
of  the  All-holy  Son,  and  our  hearts  to  hold  the  joy, 
and  not  die;  to  watch  with  spirits  all  outstretched 
in   adoration   the  ever-radiant  and   ineffably  beautiful 
Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  from  the  Father  and  the 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUH  LOYE.    287 

Son,  and  to  participate  ourselves  in  that  jubilee  of 
jubilees,  and  drink  in  with  greedy  minds  the  wonders 
of  that  procession,  and  the  marvellous  distinctness  of 
its  beauty  from  the  Generation  of  the  Son  ;  to  feel 
ourselves  with  extatic  awe  and  yet  with  seraphic  inti- 
macy overshadowed  by  the  Person  of  the  Unbegotten 
Father,  the  Father  to  whom  and  of  whom  we  have  said 
so  much  on  earth,  the  Fountain  of  Godhead,  who  is 
truly  our  Father  while  He  is  also  the  Father  of  the 
Eternal  Son  ;  to  explore,  with  exulting  license  and  with 
unutterable  glad  fear,  Attribute  after  Attribute,  ocean9 
opening  into  oceans  of  divinest  beauty  ;  to  lie  astonished 
in  unspeakable  contentment  before  the  vision  of  God's 
surpassing  Unity,  so  long  the  joyous  mystery  of  our 
predilection,  while  the  Vision  through  all  eternity 
seems  to  grow  more  fresh  and  bright  and  new:— 0  my 
poor  soul!  what  canst  thou  know  of  this,  or  of  these 
beautiful  necessities,  of  thy  exceeding  love,  which  shall 
only  satisfy  itself  in  endless  alternations,  now  of  silence 
and  now  of  song. 

These  are  the  rewards  of  God,  these  the  ways  in 
which  He  repays  our  love.  To  hear  them  or  to  read  of 
them  is  not  enough.  Years  of  continual  meditation 
•will  not  even  give  us  an  adequate  conception  of  them* 
To  estimate  them  rightly  we  must  have  a  true  and 
profound  knowledge  of  God,  and  be  able  to  think 
worthily  of  His  greatness.  Without  this  we  can  never 
know  the  abyss  of  condescension  to  which  He  stoops 
in  order  to  confer  a  grace  upon  the  loftiest  of  His 
6aint3.  Ho  has  as  it  were  to  humble  Himself  even  to 
receive  the  burning  worship  of  the  purest  seraphim. 
To  what  a  lowness  does  He  bend  Himself  in  order  to 
accept  the  love  of  the  Immaculate  heart  of  Mary ! 
"Without  repeated  meditation  on  the  Divine  Perfections 


2S3    IN  WHAT  WAI  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. . 

we  cannot  fathom  the  depth  of  our  own  nothingness, 
the  horror  of  our  own  baseness,  the  inconceivable  per-, 
tinacity  of  our  sin ;  neither  can  we  realize,  not  only 
the   littleness  of  our  love  which  is  so  little    that  the 
poorest  words  give  an  exaggerated  impression  of  it, 
but  also  to  what  extent  God  is  free  from  obligation 
to  us,  and  to  how  little,  little  at  least  compared  with 
the  immensity  of  His  actual  mercies,  our  nature  can 
lay  claim  as  its  due  because  it  is  a  creature.     Yet  an 
accurate  spiritual  apprehension  of  all   these  things  is 
needful  before  we  can  appreciate  the  mysterious  mag- 
nificence of  the  rewards  of  God.     Only  let  us  remem- 
ber, for  life  is  short  and  there  is  much  to  do,  that  right 
down  through  the  abyss  of  our  own  nothingness  lies 
the  shortest  road  to  the  contemplation  of  the  Divina . 
Beauty. 

While  I  stand  in  the  presence  of  these  mighty  recom- 
penses of  our  Creator,  I  am  abashed  by  their  exceed-, 
ing  magnitude,  and  all  things  else  which  I  otherwise, 
should  love  become  insignificant  and  go  almost  out  of 
sight,  I  feel  that  I  have  no  words  to  tell  these  great 
things,  no  thoughts  to  think  them ;  and  yet  it  seems 
to  me  as  if  the  way  in  which  God  repays  our  love  was 
Something  even  more  wonderful  than  the  rewards  He 
gives.  To  see  God  face  to  face  is  the  crowning  joy  of 
heaven;  to  be  sensibly  near  Him  is  the  greatest  joy 
of  earth  ;  and  He  never  seems  so  near  as  in  the  way 
in  which  He  deals  with  us,  His  demeanour  towards  us, 
His  manner,  His  address,  His  courtesy,  if  I  may  for 
the  moment  use  such  words.  At  first  sight  it  is  alto- 
gether so  unlike  what  we  should  have  expected ;  and 
yet  on  second  thoughts  so  right,  so  suitable,  both  to 
His  greatness  and  to  our  littleness,  while  at  the  same 
lime  its  being  right  and  suitable  does  not  in  the  least; 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.    289 

detract  from  its  gratuitous  condescension.  Nay,  it 
rather  enhances  it.  In  truth  God's  goodness  is  unliko 
any  other  subject  of  human  contemplation;  for  tho 
more  reasonable  it  appears  to  us,  the  more  surprising 
does  it  grow,  as  if,  even  now  and  here,  it  partook  some- 
what of  the  eternal  freshness  of  the  Beatific  VisioD. 

When  the  Creator  of  the  world  entered  it  in  order 
to  redeem  it,  in  the  obscure  midnight,  in  a  gloomy 
cavern,  as  the  Bube  of  Bethlehem,  it  was  an  advent; 
such  as  took  the  natural  speculations  of  men  by  sur- 
prise, and  was  even  a  hindrance  to  their  belief.  So 
is  it  with  God's  demeanour  towards  us  in  the  world. 
He  is  not  like  a  great  king.  He  is  unlike  one  both  in 
the  frequency  of  His  visits,  or  rather  in  His  abiding 
presence,  and  also  in  the  absence  of  pomp  and  notice 
when  He  comes.  There  is  no  attitude  of  command, 
no  obvious  graciousness  of  condescension.  Blessed  be 
His  Majesty !  His  manner  is  not  that  of  a  master, 
nor  even  of  an  equal;  it  is  rather  that  of  an  inferior 
mingled  with  the  sweetness  and  fidelity  of  an  earthly 
mother.  When  He  blesses  us,  assists  us,  gives  us 
graces,  soothes  our  sorrows,  or  dries  our  tears,  He 
does  it  all  with  an  amazing  tenderness,  almost  with  a 
sort  of  bashful  humility,  like  one  whom  we  are  laying 
under  an  obligation  by  accepting  his  services  at  all. 
The  attentions  of  His  love  are  also  so  minute,  that  no 
service,  or  half-service,  or  transitory  intentions  of  our? 
escape  His  divine  yet  just  exaggerations.  In  cur  past 
life  there  are  thousands  of  forgotten  prayers,  thousands 
}f  resisted  temptations ;  but  God  has  forgotten  none 
of  them,  ne  repays  them  with  a  mindfulness  which, 
unless  it  also  awakens  love,  can  hardly  fail  to  try  our 
faith.     He  must  indeed  desire  our  love,  who  tempts  us 

with  an  eternal  reward  for  a  cup  of  cold  water  givers 
19     f 


290        IN  "WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OTJH  LOYE. 

in  His  Name.  He  repays  us  also  variously  and  with 
a  view  to  our  tastes  and  desires,  so  as  to  enhance  to 
each  of  us  the  value  of  our  own  particular  reward. 
He  repays  us  superabundantly.  At  first  sight  it  seems 
as  if  there  was  an  absence  of  all  similitude  between  the 
service  and  the  reward,  both  in  degree  and  kind. 
Nevertheless  there  is  to  His  wisdom  an  exact  and 
unerring  proportion  in  His  recompense,  which,  while 
the  manner  of  it  is  a  mystery  to  us,  is  at  the  same 
time  an  encouragement  to  us  to  love  Him  more,  as  if 
He  had  affectionately  and  condescendingly  put  it  in 
our  own  power  to  have  as  much  of  heaven  and  of  Him 
as  we  please.  Last  of  all,  throughout  the  whole  pro- 
ceeding, it  is  in  reality  love,  and  not  services,  which 
He  repays,  not  the  acts  we  do,  so  much  as  the  spirit 
in  which  we  do  them.  Can  we  conceive  of  a  manner 
more  attractive,  of  an  affection  more  winning,  of  a 
solicitude  more  delightful,  of  a  gratitude  more  touch- 
ing, of  an  unselfishness  more  sweetly  reproachful,  of  a 
generosity  more  overwhelming,  of  a  magnificence  more 
delicate,  than  this  demeanour  of  the  Creator  towards 
His  creatures?  And  it  is  none  other  than  the  Creator, 
the  Boundless  Ocean  of  Being,  the  abyss  of  unfathom- 
able perfections,  who  to  the  gigantic  stretch  of  His 
omnipotence  can  wed  these  ineffable  delicacies  of 
minutest  love !  And  it  is  to  us  that  all  this  is  done, 
to  us  who  had  no  rights  to  begin  with,  and  who  have 
again  and  again  forfeited  all  rights  we  could  imagine 
might  be  ours,  to  us  who  in  our  secret  hearts  know 
ourselves  to  be  what  we  are,  more  unspeakably  wicked 
than  any  one  of  our  fellow  creatures  suspects  that  we 
can  be!  And  the  love  which  is  thus  repaid,  alas! 
what  a  mockery  of  love  it  is ! 
Let  us  think  once  more  of  heaven.    How  cheerfully 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.    291 

the  thought  of  that  bright  home  can  humble  us ! 
What  can  be  more  wonderful  than  the  contrast  between 
man  paying  God  on  earth,  and  God  paying  man  in 
heaven?  We  have  looked  at  man's  side  in  the  last 
chapter.  We  have  seen  the  misery  and  unworthiness, 
the  scantiness  and  the  meanness,  the  coldness,  the 
reluctance,  the  distraction,  and  the  ungracious  delays 
of  the  creature  with  the  Creator.  And  then  comes 
death  !  A  good  death  is  one  in  which  we  feel  that  hither- 
to we  have  never  done  any  good  at  all,  but  in  which 
we  seriously,  though  with  alarming  self-distrust,  intend, 
if  we  survive,  to  begin  to  do  good.  And  considering 
the  greatness  of  God  and  the  vastness  of  our  obliga- 
tions to  Him,  this  is  by  no  means  a  fiction  even  to  the 
Saints.  We  die,  and  in  dying  we  fall  into  the  hands 
of  His  justice,  and  there,  fresh  wonder  of  creative 
love!  we  find  far  more  than  mercy.  Our  guardian 
angel  could  scarcely  let  us  into  heaven  if  he  wished, 
were  he  the  judge.  The  Mother  of  mercy  would  have 
to  borrow  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  before  she  could 
Bee  things  as  He  sees  them,  and  award  a  crown  to  us. 
If  there  could  be  shame  in  heaven,  how  should  we  be 
overwhelmed  with  confusion  appearing  there  with  th^ 
miserable  tribute  of  our  interested  love  and  of  our 
wisely  selfish  fear!  But  how  does  the  Creator,  the 
King  of  kings,  receive  His  tribute?  He  bursts  forth 
all  divinely  in-o  triumph,  because  a  half-converted  sin- 
ner has  condescended  to  accept  His  grace.  He  bids 
the  angels  rejoice,  and  holds  high  feast  through  all  the 
empyrean  heaven,  not  because  He  has  evolved  some 
new  and  wonder-stirring  system  out  of  nothing,  not 
because  He  has  called  into  being  some  million- worlded 
nebula,  and  cast  upon  it  such  an  effulgence  of  His 
beauty  as  throws  all  the  rest  cf  Hia  creation  into  the 


202    IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

^hade, — but  because  one  wretched,  unworthy,  offensive 
man  has,  after  an  immense  amount  of  divine  eloquence 
and  pleading,  consented  to  take  the  first  step  towards 
not    being    damned, — because    one  outcast  of  human 
society,  who   has   drunk  his  fill   of  every   vice,    has 
•graciously  condescended  for  fear  of  hell  to  accept  heaven  ! 
These  are  the  Creator's  triumphs,  these  the  ovations  of 
everlasting  and  of  all-wise  mercy.     And  God  can  do 
nought  unworthy  of  Himself.    lie  cannot  demean  Him- 
self.    Abasement  is  impossible  to  Him.    Nothing  can 
sully  His  incomparable  purity.     Nothing  can  He  do 
which  is  not  infinitely  worthy  of  Him,  worthy  of  Hi9 
power,  His  wisdom,  and  His  goodness.     And  therefore 
this  ^triumph,  this  feast  of  angels,  over  one  sinner  that 
does   penance,  is    altogether    worthy  of  the  adorable 
majesty  of  the  eternally  blessed  God !     0  who  would 
not  weep  over  the  wonders  of  creative  love,  mystery 
after  mystery,  at  every  turn  giving  out  fresh  treasures 
of  tenderness,  compassion,  and  magnificence  ? 

Watch  that  soul  which  is  now  just  entering  heaven. 
Can  any  thing  be  more  amazing  than  the  caresses  which 
God  is  lavishing  upon  it?  Heaven  itself  has  almost 
grown  brighter  by  its  entrance,  and  the  anthems  of  the 
redeemed  have  sounded  forth  with  a  more  full  sonorous 
melody.  Mary  on  her  throne  has  been  filled  with  joy, 
while  an  exulting  thrill  of  sympathy  ran  through  all 
the  angelic  multitudes.  And  why  do  they  rejoice? 
Because  there  is  a  new  joy  for  God,  another  glory  for 
His  complacency  to  rest  on.  It  is  the  salvation  of  that 
soul  which  has  just  entered  heaven.  Some  fifty  years 
of  the  full  use  of  reason  it  lived  on  earth.  The  world 
was  its  delight,  wealth  almost  its  idol.  It  drank  its  full 
of  various  pleasures,  and  thought  not  of  His  goodness 
out  of  which  they  come.,    Many  times  the.  divine  law 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE.    £93 

came  across  that  man's  path,  and  when  it  did,  he 
6traightway,  and  with  little  reflection,  transgressed  it. 
He  loved  luxury,  denied  himself  nothing,  and  was  not 
over-bountiful  to  the  poor.  lie  was  surrounded  by 
comforts,  as  a  city  is  compassed  by  its  walls.  He  had 
sorrows  and  troubles,  who  has  not?  But  they  were 
light  and  infrequent.  The  world  smiled  upon  its  votary. 
He  was  popular  with  his  fellows.  He  had  all  that  his 
indolent  ambition  cared  to  have;  and  best  of  all, 
he  was  blessed  with  almost  unbroken  health.  There 
^as  at  last  almost  the  weariness  of  satiety  about  his 
nndeviatingly  prosperous  fortune.  Disease  came,  and  his 
old  joys  ceased  to  be  joys  at  all.  He  had  nothing  then 
to  tempt  him  from  God,  but  everything  to  draw  him 
nearer  to  Him.  Fear  also,  with  the  belief  of  hell, 
wrought  strongly  upon  him  ;  and  by  the  help  of  priest 
and  sacrament,  together  with  the  grace  of  a  sorrow  easily 
within  reach  of  his  faith  and  fear,  he  put  together  in 
some  ten  days  the  dregs  of  half  a  century  spent  in  the 
service  of  the  devil  and  the  world  ;  and  he  has  now  gone 
through  a  very  circuitous  path  in  purgatory  to  heaven 
to  offer  God  this  refuse  of  his  probation.  And  heaven 
keeps  feast  for  this !  And  the  great  Creator  takes 
almost  with  avidity  the  leavings  of  the  world,  count- 
ing for  chivalry  the  querulous  helplessness  of  a  sin- 
enfeebled^soul.  There  is  not  one  word  of  reproach,  one 
look  of  discontent.  Coupled  with  His  extraordinary 
mindfulness  of  minutest  services,  God  is  seemingly  for- 
getful how  all  good  is  but  His  own  grace.  Moreover 
He  is  as  it  were  blind  to  the  fact  that  the  man  was 
after  all  doing  what  was  best  for  himself,  and  when  lie 
could  hardly  help  himself,  and  even  then  with  amazingly 
little  of  self-indignation  or  of  righteous  zeal.  See!  His 
arms  are  round  that  deathbed  penitent.     He  is  telling 


294    IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  REPAYS  OUR  LOVE. 

him  the  secrets  of  His  love.  He  is  sealing  for  him 
with  a  Father's  kiss  the  eternity  of  his  beatitude.  That 
man  will  lie  for  ever  bathed  in  the  beautiful  light  of  the 
Godhead  !* 

Is  this  credible?  Should  we  dare  to  believe  it,  if  it 
were  not  of  faith?  O  wonderful,  wonderful  God!  of 
whom  each  hour  is  telling  us  something  new,  making 
premature  perpetual  heaven  in  our  hearts !  It  is  an  old 
history,  that  love  makes  the  Creator  seem  to  put  Him- 
self below  His  own  creatures:  it  is  an  old  history,  yet 
it  surprises  us  almost  to  tears  each  morning  as  we  wake. 
•So  here  we  come  to  a  Servant-God,  like  the  Incarnate 
Servant-Saviour,  Jesus  Christ.  And  yet  there  are  men 
to  whom  God  is  a  difficulty  !  There  are  men  who 
think  hard  thoughts  of  Him,  whose  only  trial  of  us  is  in 
the  prodigious  excesses  of  His  love,  which  wearies  and 
outstrips  at  times  the  slowness  of  our  faith.    0  Heavenly 

*  This  imaginary  case,  put  forward  here  as  a  mere  theological  possi. 
bility,  is  given  as  actual  fact  in  some  of  the  revelations  of  the  saints.  I 
■will  cite  two,  one  a  case  of  contrition  and  the  other  of  attrition,  which  are 
exact  parallels,  and  easy  of  access.  The  first  is  the  case  of  Lord  Stourton,  given 
in  Hosignoli's  Maraviglie  di  Dio  nell'  Anime  del  Purgatorio,  parte  i.  Maraviglia 
v.  The  second  is  the  famous  revelation  of  the  "  Least  in  Heaven"  made  to 
St.  Mechtildis.  Libro  della  Spiritual  Grazia,  lib.  i.  cap.  51.  This  last  has  before 
now  played  its  part  in  controversy.  See  Siuri.  Theologia  Positiva-Dogmatica 
de  Ndvissimis.  Tractatus  v.  cap.  4.  Sect.  55,  where  however  the  reference  to 
St.  Mechtildis  is  given  wrongly.  From  certain  observations  I  incline  to 
believe  that  contrition  is  a  commoner  deathbed  grace  than  attrition.  If  this 
be  so,  it  is  another  example  of  the  way  in  which  the  excesses  of  God's  mercy 
further  the  interests  of  His  exceeding  sanctity.  When  attrition  is  given  as  a 
deathbed  grace  it  is  most  likely  the  result  of  an  earnest  endeavour  after 
contrition.  I  cannot  fancy  a  dying  sinner,  roused  to  a  sense  of  sin,  trying 
only  for  attrition.  Still  less  can  I  believe  that  he  would  succeed  in  obtaining 
it.  The  very  idea  seems  to  me  incongruous  with  real  earnestness,  almost 
an  evidence  of  an  unchanged  heart  with  no  honest  wish  to  be  changed.  A 
large  proportion  of  deathbed  conversions  are  cases  of  men  who  from  un- 
toward outward  circumstances  and  inadequate  instruction  have  their  souls 
for  the  first  time  really  roused  to  a  sense  of  sin  and  a  right  view  of  God,  wheB 
lying  on  their  bed  of  death,  witli  the  priest  by  their  sides. 


IN  WHAT  WAY  GOD  BEPAY8  OUR  LOVE.        295 

Father!  it  is  the  greatness  of  Thy  goodness  which 
hewilders  our  humility  by  mocking  our  knowledge  of 
ourselves;  and  that  is  the  only  difficulty  we  find  in 
Thee.  May  it  grow  still  more  difficult,  still  more  beyond 
our  grasp,  for  therein  is  our  eternal  life! 

What  then  is  the  conclusion  to  which  we  come  about 
this  repaying  of  our  love  by  God?  It  is  simply  this. 
In  the  first  place,  He  has  made  His  glory  coincide  with 
our  interests.  Secondly,  from  a  privilege  He  lowers 
love  into  a  precept,  and  this  one  act  is  a  complete  reve- 
lation of  Himself.  Thirdly,  He  so  puts  our  interests 
into  His,  that  it  is  hard  to  look  at  His  interests  only, 
i  ithout  falling  into  heresy.  Do  these  conclusions  solve 
the  five  questions  we  have  been  asking?  No !  but  they 
lead  to  the  one  answer  of  all  the  five ;  only  that,  ending 
as  we  began,  the  answer  is  itself  a  mystery.  St.  John 
states  it;  no  one  can  explain  it;  earth  would  be  hell 
without  it;  purgatory  is  paradise  because  of  it;  we 
shall  live  upon  it  in  heaven,  yet  never  learn  all  that  is 
in  it; — God  is  love! 


BOOK  III. 

OBJECTIONS  CONSIDERED. 


THE  CREATOR  AND  THE  CREATURE. 


BOOK  III. 

OBJECTIONS  CONSIDERED. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 

L'estat  fie  la  redemption  vaut  cent  fois  mieux  que  celuy  de  I'innocence. 

S.  Francis  of  Sales. 

The  result  of  the  preceding  enquiry  has  been  at  the 
very  least  to  satisfy  us  as  to  the  fact  that  God  lores  us, 
and  as  to  the  nature  and  character  of  His  love.  We 
have  seen  that  Divine  love  is  at  once  creative,  redeem- 
ing, sanctifying,  uncreated,  and  without  respect  of  per- 
sons. As  creative  it  was  not  content  to  call  angels  and 
men  out  of  nothing,  but  it  constituted  them  at  the  outset 
in  a  state  of  grace,  which  was  not  connatural  to  them,  and 
was  in  no  way  due  to  their  nature.  As  redeeming,  it 
pursued  men  when  they  fell;  and  at  no  less  an  expense 
than  the  Incarnation  of  One  of  the  Divine  Persons,  and 
with  every  circumstance  of  attraction  and  prodigality, 
it  bought  them  back  again  when  they  had  sold  them- 
selves as  slaves  to  evil.  As  sanctifying,  it  is  incessant 
in  its  visitations  of  grace,  and  marvellous  in  the  heights 
of  sanctity  to  which  it  can  raise  those  whom  sin  had 
sunk  so  low.     As  uncreated,  it  is  especially  astonishing 


800  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 

and  adorable,  and  naturally  includes,  and  while  it  in- 
cludes surpasses,  all  created  ties  and  all  diversities  of 
human  love.  As  without  respect  of  persons,  it  enables 
us  to  repose  our  trust,  not  only  on  the  all-efficacious 
power  of  God,  but  upon  that  beautiful  justice  and 
exquisite  fidelity  which  are  the  true  foundations  of  our 
love. 

In  this  love  of  God  we  have  already  passed  an  eter- 
nity.   In  this  love  we  have  lived  without   beginning. 
He  has  never  seen  His  glorious  Word,  but  He  has  seen 
us  in  Him,  and  the  mutual  love  of  Father  and  of  Son 
from  the  first  has  scattered  its  brightness  on  our  foreseen 
lives.     There  is  something  awful  in  such  enduring  love, 
something  which  overshadows  the  spirits  of  creatures  so 
capricious  and  inconstant  as  ourselves.     It  frightens  us 
that  we  should  have  been  loved  eternally.    At  the  same 
time  what  must  be  the  necessary  efficacy  of  an  eternal 
love?    Here  is  a  very  mine  of  golden  consolation.     He 
•who  has  not  ceased  to  love  us  from  for  ever,  will  nob 
lightly  withdraw  His  love.     He  will   not  easily  sur- 
render to  His  enemies  a  creature  whom  He  has  borne 
in  His  bosom  like  a  nurse  from  the  beginning.     Into 
the  least  of  His  blessings  He  pours   an   endless  love. 
There  are  no  infirmities  which  He  disdains,  no  prayers 
which  He  disregards.     He  cannot  love  otherwise  than 
with  an  overflowing  love,  rewarding  the  most   trivial 
actions,   canonizing  the   most   transitory   wishes,  and 
placing  around  every  step  of  life  6uch  a  retinue  of  graces, 
such  an  attendance  of  angels,  such  an  apparatus  of  sacra- 
ments, that  the  self-will  must  be  strong  indeed  which 
can  break  away  from  God  and  lose  itself. 

He  apparently  consults  our  interests  rather  than  Hi9 
own,  by  making  in  reality  the  last  identical  with  the 
first.    His  first  thought  for  sinners  is  to  make  repen- 


THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION*.  801 

tance  easy  and  light,  and  strange  indeed  are  the  thing9 
to  which  His  wisdom  can  persuade  His  justice,  or  His 
goodness  bend  His  sanctity.     By  His  own  order  our 
liberty  seems  to  take  precedence  of  His  law,  while  the 
whole  of  creation  is  apparently  disposed  fur  the  conve- 
nience  of  our  salvation.      The  increase  of   this    love 
depends  upon  ourselves.     On  this  side  the  grave  we 
can  have  it  when  we  will,  and  there  is  always  grace  to 
enable  us  to  ask  it  and  to  will  it.     The  more  we  ask 
the  more  He  will  give,  and  reckon  the  obligation  to  be 
on  His  6ide  rather  than  on  ours.     All  that  is  wanted  of 
us  is,  to  take  God's  side,  to  love  what  He  loves,  to  hate 
what  He  hates,  and,  to  sum  up  all  in  one  word,  to  belong 
to  Jesus  Christ. 

This  is  a  summary  of  the  results  at  which  we  have 
arrived,  and  it  brings  us  to  the  conclusion  of  the  second 
division  of  our  treatise.     In  the  first  we  enquired  what 
it  was  to  be  a  creature  and  what  it  was  to  have  a  Creator, 
and  we  saw  that  creation  meant  and  only  could  mean 
love.     Full  of  the  knowledge  we  had  thus  acquired,  we 
proceeded  to  ask  five  questions,  concerning  the  principal 
mysteries  of  this  Divine  Love,  which  from  its  eternal 
hiding-place  in  God  came  into  s:ght  at  creation,  and 
we  saw  that  our  position  as  creatures  made  it  important 
to  us  to  have  these  questions  answered.     But  it  may  be 
objected,  All  this  is  so  much  special  pleading  for  God. 
It  does  not  state  man's  case  fairly,  because  it  does  not 
fitate   it   completely.      There   are   certain   phenomena 
which  are  practical  objections  to  thi3  view,  and  they 
have  hardly  been  considered.     This  is  what  may  be 
said.      I   do   not   own   the  justice   of  it,  because,   as 
I    have  said  before,  if  I  understand   rigiitly  what  it 
is   to   be    a  creature,    and   what    it    is    to    have    a 
Creator,  I  do  not  see  how  the  creature  can  have  any 


302  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 

side  at  all.  It  appears  that  God's  side  is  also  the 
creature's  side,  and  that  he  can  have  no  other.  If 
we  imagine  for  ourselves  an  immensely  benevolent  des- 
pot, in  possession  of  the  most  legitimate  claims  upon  our 
obedience,  but  bound  by  the  rectitude  of  his  own  cha- 
racter, as  well  as  by  our  rights,  to  the  exercise  of  com- 
mutative justice,  and  call  him  the  Creator,  under  such  a 
being  we  should  obviously  have  a  side  of  our  own,  and 
a  point  of  view  belonging  to  us.  But  that  is  no  adequate 
description  of  God.  It  is  only  an  uneasy  intellectual 
creation  of  our  own.  But,  if  there  be  a  chance  of  gain- 
ing any  more  love  for  God  from  the  hearts  of  His 
creatures,  most  willingly  should  we  engage  in  the  task 
of  meeting  these  objections,  the  more  willingly  because 
the  soil  to  be  turned  up  is  so  rich,  concerning,  as  it  does, 
the  Creator's  love  of  His  creatures,  that  it  will  bloom 
with  fresh  and  fresh  blossoms  almost  before  the  plough 
has  furrowed  up  the  surface. 

Our  object  however  is  strictly  a  practical  one.  Hence 
we  are  not  going  to  enter  into  any  of  the  abstruse  ques- 
tions about  the  origin  of  evil,  or  the  existence  of  hell,  or 
the  permission  of  idolatry,  or  the  eternal  destiny  of 
those  outside  the  Church.  We  are  speaking  to  the 
children  of  the  Church,  and  however  dark  such  ques- 
tions may  be  to  them,  or  however  worthy  of  their  most 
vigorous  intellectual  research,  they  have  no  right  to  be 
practical  difficulties  to  a  Catholic  in  the  pursuit  of 
holiness.  Strictly  speaking  we  have  no  right  to  have 
any  difficulties  at  all ;  for  a  speculative  difficulty  can 
hardly  become  a  practical  one  to  men  who  take  the 
teaching  of  the  Church  on  faith ;  and  men  who  do  not, 
.—how  shall  they  dream  of  attaining  holiness  at  all? 
Nevertheless  there  are  some  questions  which,  if  not 
without  fault  of  ours,  at  least  without  grievous  fault, 


TEE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION.  o03 

tease  and  molest  us,  and  become,  not  unfrequently, 
sometimes  the  sources  and  at  other  times  the  hotbeds 
of  temptation.  Of  these  we  may  select  three  especially, 
because  in  handling  them  we  shall  implicitly  and  in- 
directly answer  many  more.  The  first  is  the  difficulty 
of  salvation  ;  the  second,  the  ultimate  fate  of  the  great 
multitude  of  the  faithful;  and  the  third,  the  perplexing 
question  of  worldliness ;  and  these  will  occupy  this  and 
the  two  following  chapters. 

It  is  objected  that  all  that  has  been  said  of  the  crea- 
tive love  of  God  would  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is 
easy  to  be  saved,  or  that  if  it  is  not  easy,  the  case  has 
not  been  stated  in  its  entireness.  To  this  objection  it 
does  not  seem  a  sufficient  answer  to  say,  that  God  is  not 
less  good,  but  that  the  awful  malice  and  corruption  of 
man's  will  are  too  strong  even  for  His  will  to  save  us. 
For,  though  it  is  true  that  God  cannot  both  leave  us 
free  and  constrain  us  to  be  saved,  yet  His  redeeming 
love  might  be  expected  to  make  such  allowances  for  the 
unhappy  degradation  of  man  by  sin,  as  to  make  his  sal- 
vation not  a  work  of  more  than  ordinary  difficulty. 
Surely  these  allowances  are  implied  in  the  very  notion 
of  redemption.  If  heaven  be  not  easy  of  access,  neither 
its  beauty  nor  the  generosity  with  which  it  is  offered 
are  such  motives  of  love  as  they  would  be  on  the  con- 
trary supposition.  The  most  perfectly  satisfactory 
answer  to  the  objection,  if  it  be  true,  is,  that  salvation  is 
easy.  "We  are  speaking  only  to  and  of  believers,  and 
are  not  concerning  ourselves  with  a  secret  which  God 
has  reserved  for  Himself,  and  into  which  we  do  not 
attempt  to  penetrate  even  by  guesses,  because  it  has  no 
practical  bearing  upon  our  own  service  of  God.  To  a 
believer  salvation  is  easy,  so  easy  in  fact  that  to  each 
individual  soul  in  the  Church  the  chances  are  greatly  in 


304  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION 

favour  of  his  salvation.  This  may  not  be  true  of  him 
at  any  given  moment,  as  when  he  has  just  relapsed  iuto 
sin,  or  when  he  is  enfeebled  by  a  long  wilful  captivity  to 
sinful  habits ;  but  looking  at  his  life  as  a  whole,  and 
considering  things  in  the  long  run,  it  is  true  that  the 
chances  are  greatly  in  favour  of  his  salvation  ;  and  I 
have  my  misgivings  that  I  am  even  thus  understating 
his  prospects  of  success.  His  life  must  be  a  life  of 
efforts ;  but  the  efforts  are  easy,  easy  in  themselves,  easy 
in  their  auxiliaries,  easy  in  both  the  prospect  of  a  future 
and  the  enjoyment  of  a  present  reward.  What  else  is 
the  meaning  of  our  Lord's  words :  Come  to  Me,  all  you 
that  labour,  and  are  burdened,  and  I  will  refresh  you. 
Take  up  My  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  Me,  because  I 
am  meek,  and  humble  of  heart ;  and  you  shall  find  rest 
to  your  souls.  For  My  yoke  is  sweet,  and  My  burden 
liaht.*  Or  again  what  can  be  more  distinct}  than  the 
words  of  St.  John  :  For  this  is  the  charity  of  God,  that 
we  keep  His  commandments ;  and  His  commandments 
are  not  heavy.  For  whatsoever  is  born  of  God  over- 
cometh  the  world  ;  and  this  is  the  victory  which  over- 
cometh  the  world,  our  faith  ?f 

The  first  point  then  for  us  to  consider  is  the  easiness 
of  salvation  in  itself.  Let  no  one  be  afraid,  that  if  the 
affirmative  of  this  proposition  be  proved,  it  will  make 
any  of  us  sluggish  and  indifferent  in  the  pursuit  of 
Christian  perfection.  Divine  truth  is  continually  exert- 
ing an  influence  and  putting  forth  an  attraction,  which 
baffle  and  deride  the  guesses  and  predictions  of  our 
human  criticism.  If  the  view  be  true,  it  will  lead  men 
to  love  God  who  do  not  love  Him  now,  and  it  will  lead 
those  who  love  Him  already  to  love  Him  more.  It 
3£  not  the  fear  of  hell  which  draws  men  to  aim  at  per- 

*  St.  Matt.  xi.  1 1.  St.  John  v. 


THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION.  305 

fection,  nor  is  it  the  ambition  to  be  saints  which  buoys 
them  up  through  mortification,  weariness  and  prayer. 
It  is  the  beauty  of  God,  which  has  touched  them  and 
taken  them  captive;  and  whatever  discloses  more  of 
that  beauty,  will  be  but  a  stronger  attraction  enabling 
them  to  scale  higher  summits.  So  while  our  enquiry 
will  give  us  sweet  and  hopeful  views  of  sir.ners,  ic  will 
also  humble,  edify,  and  stimulate  ourselves,  if  we  are 
trying  to  advance  in  the  ways  of  God. 

Let  us  tli en  trace  from  the  first  the  process  by  which 
God  vouchsafes  to  save  a  soul.     Not  many  clays  elar;2 
after  a  child  of  catholic  parents  is  born,  before  he  is 
carried  to  the  baptismal  font.      There  by  the  almost 
momentary  action  of  pouring  water  in  the  name  of  the 
Most  Holy  and  Undivided  Trinity,  the  child  is  regen- 
erated.    Nothing  can  be  more  easy,  or  more  instanta- 
neous.    Yet  let  us  consider  all  that  is  involved  in  an 
infant's  baptism.     Not  only  are  the  eternal  consequences 
of  the  fall  to  his  particular  soul  in  one  instant  destroyed, 
but  the  child  becomes  entitled   to  the  most  stupendous 
privileges  and  inheritance,  which  would  not  have  been 
due  to  him  naturally,  even  if  Adam  had  not  fallen.    He 
is  at  once  raised  to  a  far  higher  state  than  one  of  pure 
r-iture.     He  is  the  child  of  God.     The  Divine  Nature 
Las  been  communicated  to  him  by  sanctifying  grave. 
Extraordinary    possibilities  "of  spiritual    developments  . 
and  earnests  of  everlasting  life  have  been  implanted  in 
him  by  certain  mysteriously  infused  habits  of  the  theo- 
Icgical  virtues,  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  perhaps  of  the 
other  virtues  also.*     Seven  other  supernatural  habits, 

*  Benedict  XIV.  (de  Canonizat.  iii.  21)  says  it  is  as  yet  a  disputed  point 
whether  there  is  at  baptism  an  infusion  of  the  moral  virtues  together  with 
the  theological.  St.  Thomas  (1.  2.  qu.  63.  art.  3)  discusses  the  question 
wheUier  any  moral  virtues  are  given  to  us  by  infusion,  and  he  answeri  it 
iffinsfttirely,  lecause  it  is  necessary  tlmt  effects  should  correspond  propor- 
20    -j. 


06  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 


standing  in  the  same  relation  to  the  actual  impulses  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  as  the  other  infused  habits  stand  to 
actual  grace,  and  which  bear  the  name  of  the  Gifts  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  are  also  infused  into  him,  containing 
in  themselves  spiritual  provisions  for  the  greater  occa- 
sions of  his  life,  for  his  more  intimate  intercourse  with 
God,  and,  if  so  be,  for  the  magnificent  operations  of 
heroic  sanctity.  Meanwhile,  if  he  dies  before  the  use  of 
reason,  there  is  secured  to  him  the  eternal  vision  of  God, 
with  all  the  intellectual  glories  of  an  immortal  spirit, 
whose  intelligence  had  never  been  developed  upon  earth 
at  all.  Now  all  this  haste,  if  we  may  so  speak,  with 
which  the  divine  mercy  seizes  the  infant's  soul,  refusing 
to  wait  for  his  consent  or  till  he  can  accept  God's  great; 
gift  by  a  rational  act  of  his  own,  implies  such  a  deter- 
mined and  exuberant  love  on  the  part  of  the  Creator, 
that  it  is  not  easily  to  be  conceived,  that  the  rest  of  the 
process  of  salvation  shall  not  partake  of  the  same  char- 
acter of  divine  impatience  and  facility. 

The  baptized  child,  when  he  comes  to  the  use  of 
reason,  finds  himself  under  a  code  of  laws,  the  object  of 
which  is  to  secure  his  salvation  by  prescribing  the  con- 
ditions on  which  it  is  to  be  obtained.  These  are  the  ten 
commandments  of  God  and  the  six  precepts  of  the 
Church.  They  are  few  in  number  and  easy  of  observ- 
ance, at  least  easy  under  ordinary  circumstances ;  and 
en  the  occasions  when  they  are  difficult,  quite  marvel- 
lous assistances  of  supernatural  grace  are  prepared  and 

tionately  to  their  causes  and  principles.  (Cf.  Snlmanticenses  in  cursu  iii.  tr. 
ii.  disp.  3.)  Scotus  on  the  other  hand  denies  the  infusion  of  the  moral  virtues. 
<in  iii.  sent.  dist.  xxxvi.  qu.  unic.  art.  3.)  A  gloss  on  the  decree  of  Clement 
V.  in  the  council  of  Vienne,  gives  these  opposite  opinions,  and  the  questioa 
|Of  the  connection  between  the  habits  of  the  theological  and  moral  virtuesi3 
(left  open,  because  of  the  authority  of  those  doctors  who  do  not  admit  tin 
infusion  of  the  moral  virtues  in  infant  baptism.  See  also  tao  author's  Easay 
on  Canonization,  pp.  48,  43. 


THE  EASINESS  OF  SALTATION.  307 

Leaped  upon  the  soul.  The  man  finds  himself  in  a 
world  of  many  pleasures,  and,  of  these,  comparatively 
few  are  sinful ;  and  if  the  world  is  full  of  dangers  too. 
it  is  always  to  be  remembered  that  the  fatal  enemy  of 
the  soul,  mortal  Bin,  cannot  lie  in  ambush  for  it  or  take 
it  by  surprise.  Full  deliberation  and  advertence  are 
necessary  to  the  commission  of  a  mortal  sin.  When  we 
think  who  God  is  and  ponder  His  eternal  truth  and 
ineffable  sanctity,  it  must  be  a  wonder  to  us  that  any 
sin  is  venial,  that  no  number  of  ?eni  d  sins  can  make  a 
mortal  sin,  and  that  no  habits  of  venial  sin,  however  in- 
veterate, unworthy,  deliberate,  or  against  special  lights, 
can  of  themselves  destroy  the  soul.  It  is  wonderful 
that  a  man  can  be  graciously  visited  by  the  inspirations 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  can  feel  assured  in  his  own  mind 
that  such  and  such  practices  or  self-denials  are  really  the 
desire  of  God  in  his  case,  and  yet  be  also  sure  that 
those  inspirations  are  not  intended  as  a  law,  and  the 
resistance  of  them  therefore  not  a  sin,  though  all  want 
of  generosity  with  God  will  ultimately  and  indirectly 
work  its  way  to  sin.  Furthermore  the  condition  of  the 
creature  seems  to  be  untruthfulness.  Every  thing  is 
false  arouud  us,  full  of  excuse,  pretence,  and  insincerity. 
Yet  falsehood  is  the  very  opposite  of  God,  who  is  eternal 
truth,  and  it  is  equally  the  characteristic  of  the  evil  one 
whom  our  Lord  Himself  has  named  the  father  of  lies. 
Nevertheless  lying  is  a  venial  siu.  No  number  of  lies 
however  wilful,  so  long  as  they  are  not  sins  against 
justice  also,  can  of  themselves  destroy  the  soul.  Surely 
this  doctrine  is  full  of  difficulty. 

The  whole  subject  of  sin  abounds  with  truths  of  this 
description,  which  are  more  trying  to  the  faith  than  tho 
mysteries  either  ot  the  Holy  Trinity  or  the  Eucharist. 
Thus  the  remission  of  vcniul  tin,  one  of  the  most  into- 


308  TEE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION, 

resting  questions  in  the  whole  range  of  theology,  appears 
to  be  so  easy  as  to  be  almost  unconscious,  and  to  be 
quite  as  incessant  as  its  commission.  Blessings,  holy 
water,  other  sacramentals,  the  sign  of  the  cross,  the 
Name  of  Jesus,  passing  acts  of  sorrow,  nay,  some  have 
said,  any  lifting  up  of  the  mind  to  God,  and  behold! 
the  guilt  of  these  sins  falls  from  us  like  a  withered  leaf 
'rom  an  autumnal  tree.  And  what  hosts  of  venial  sins, 
forgotten  and  unrepented  of,  may  not  a  man  possibly 
take  with  him  into  the  next  world,  as  matter  for  the 
fires  of  purgatory,  and  which  can  only  delay,  and  not 
prohibit,  his  entrance  into  glory  1  All  this  does  not 
look  as  if  God  were  a  taskmaster,  or  as  if  heaven  were 
only  for  the  few.  Indeed  the  way  in  which  He  can 
show  all  this  leniency  and  make  these  singular  allow- 
ances for  our  infirmity,  and  at  the  same  time  secure 
purity  of  heart  and  real  love  of  Himself,  is  the  most 
astonishing  phenomenon  which  falls  under  the  observa- 
tion of  those  who  have  to  minister  to  the  consciences  of 
men.  How  men  can  be  so  very  good  at  the  same  time 
that  they  are  so  very  bad,  it  is  not  easy  to  explain, 
While  experience  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  whatever  of  the 
fact. 

What  is  said  of  the  doctrine  of  venial  sin  may  be  said 
idso  of  the  doctrine  of  intention.  What  duty  could 
seem  more  simple  on  the  part  of  a  creature  than  a  per- 
petual application  of  mind  and  heart  to  his  Creator? 
We  are  not  our  own,  and  we  are  not  left  to  ourselves. 
We  are  working  under  our  Father's  eye,  and  it  is  for 
Him  that  we  are  working,  and  at  His  appointed  work. 
Hence  the  road  to  sanctity  is  by  the  way  of  actual 
intentions  for  the  glory  of  God.  It  should  be  every 
one's  prime  occupation  to,  make  his  intentions  actual. 
All  other,  virtues  will  come  along  with  this.   Surprising 


THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION.  309 

treasures  of  grace  will  be  unlocked  to  us  if  we  attempt 
it.  This  one  practice  will  turn  darkness  into  light  all 
over  our  souls,  and  no  sinful  habit,  however  inveterate, 
can  exist  in  the  atmosphere  of  this  most  glorious  of  all 
spiritual  exercises.  Yet  does  anj  one  believe  that  an 
actual  intention  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  goodness 
of  an  action?  Does  God  get  no  glory  from  man's  free 
will,  except  when  man  there  and  then  intends  it?  It 
may  be  a  question  how  long  a  virtual  intention  lasts,  to 
what  extent  it  can  inform  and  invigorate  our  actions, 
and  insinuate  a  supernatural  character  into  them,  or 
what  amount  of  original  intensity  is  required  in  the 
morning's  intention  to  give  it  momentum  enough  to 
push  its  way  through  the  crowded  actions  of  an  entire 
solar  day.  All  these  may  be  questions.  But  no  one 
maintains  that  any  such  assiduous  application  to  God  as 
is  a  notable  difficulty  to  our  infirm  and  easily  distracted 
nature  is  at  all  necessary  to  salvation. 

Such  are  the  strange  relations  in  which  our  baptized 
child  finds  himself  to  Ids  Creator  as  he  grows  up,  and 
life  broadens  out  before  him.  But  there  are  graver 
matters  still  than  venial  sins,  together  with  apparently 
countless  untruths,  neglect  of  inspirations,  or  the  paucity 
of  actual  intentions  for  God's  glory.  There  is  the  ques- 
tion of  mortal  sin.  It  is  a  fearful  thing  for  the  crea- 
ture to  turn  away  wholly  from  the  Creator,  and  we  can 
well  understand  how  it  should  at  once  destroy  the  life 
cf  grace  in  the  soul.  Grace  can  live  with  any  quantity 
of  venial  sin.  So  long  as  the  eclipse  of  God  in  the  soul 
is  not  total,  eo  long  with  amazing  condescension  and 
as  it  were  a  blind  love  of  souls  does  He  continue 
to  dwell  within  us.  But  when  the  eclipse  is  total, 
what  can  follow  but  total  darkness  also?  This  seems 
inevitable,  and  yet  it  is  not  eo.     Notwithstanding  the 


810  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 

horrible  malice  of  mortal  sin,  as  being  fully  perceived 
and  deliberately  admitted,  the  grand  gift  of  faith,  that 
almost  unfailing  power  of  coming  right  again,  survives 
the  commission  of  a  mortal  sin.  The  life  of  hope  does 
not  become  extinct;  nay,  it  requires  a  fresh,  distinct, 
and  most  difficult  mortal  sin  to  destroy  that  superna- 
tural habit,  -which  gives  the  soul  the  buoyancy  and 
elasticity  requisite  to  its  conversion.  Now  is  it  quito 
easy  to  see  how  two  supernatural  habits,  two  heavenly 
powers,  two  divine  elements,  not  natural  to  man,  but 
gratuitously  infused  into  him  at  baptism,  are  not  for- 
feited and  expelled  by  the  extinction  of  the  life  of  grace 
in  the  soul  by  mortal  sin?  God  is  eclipsed  in  the  soul; 
hell  has  begun  in  it,  hell's  worst  punishment,  the  loss 
of  God ;  and  there  are  two  celestial  virtues  preaching 
in  the  darkness  still,  conspiring  against  the  reign  of 
evil,  holding  their  fortresses  with  magnanimous  patience, 
it  may  be  for  long,  long  years  of  siege,  and  attracting 
to  themselves  incessant  crowds  of  volunteers  in  the 
shape  of  actual  graces.  Is  not  all  this  wonderful  ?  Is 
it  compatible  with  the  theory  that  salvation  is  difficult? 
Is  not  mortal  sin  itself,  against  its  will,  a  new  revelation 
of  the  pertinacious  love  of  God  ? 

But  more  still.  Of  the  thousands  of  souls  in  the 
world  to-day,  unhappily  immersed  in  the  gulfs  of  mortal 
sin,  is  there  one  whom  a  whole  multitude  of  beautiful 
actual  graces  is  not  soliciting  to  return  to  God?  O 
Buch  pathetic  invitations  to  come  back  to  Him,  such 
fair  lights  of  God's  tender  compassion  riding  over  the 
dark  soul  like  the  white  sunbeams  over  a  stormy  land- 
scape, such  sweet  remorses,  sharp,  but  very,  very  sweet, 
such  cold  sobering  thoughts  of  future  punishment,  such 
"wise  artful  alternations  of  crosses  and  consolations,  such 
lifelike   speakings   of  dead  books,  such  barbed  words 


THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION.  811 

of  preacher?,  Bach  solemn  eloquence  of  the  deaths  of 
those  we  love,  such  a  nameless  sensible  thraldom  of 
God  and  grace  and  heavenly  presences,  which  we  never 
can  shake  off: — all  these,  now  with  a  very  clamour  of 
assaulting  armies,  now  with  low,  soft,  and  songlike 
pleadings,  are  the  forces  of  actual  grace,  wldch  have 
never  been  drawn  off  from  before  the  gates  of  the  heart, 
however  long  they  may  have  been  obstinately  barred 
rgunst  God  by  a  countless  garrison  of  mortal  sins. 

But  the  most  remarkable  feature  of  the  baptized 
soul's  position  with  regard  to  mortal  sin  is  the  per- 
petual, unlimited  iteration  of  the  sacrament   of  pen- 
ance.    That  there  should  be  such  a  sacrament  at  all, 
after  the  completeness  and  magnificence  of  Baptism, 
i*  a  miracle  of  divine  love.     But  that  the   Precious 
Blood  of  the  Incarnate  Word  should  be  always  at  hand, 
like  a  public  fountain  at  a  road-side,  open,  gratuitous, 
and  everflowing,  for  the  convenience  of  all  passers  by, 
could  not  be  believed,  if  the  Church  did  not  assure  us 
of  it.     Our  sheer  inability  to  comprehend  a  love  so 
great  as  God's  would  make  simple  Novatians  of  us,  if 
we  had  not  the  Church  to  inform  the  littleness  of  our 
o^n   conceptions  by   the  magnificence  of  her  dogmas. 
Is  it  easy  to  imagine  the  mercy  which  will  absolve  from 
different  mortal  sins  the  same  soul  perhaps  five  hundred 
times  in  ten  or  twenty  years,  and  some  thousands  of  times 
in  the  course  of  a  Ions:  life?     Yet  this  is  not  an  extra- 
vacant  or  fabulous  case.     Then  again  think  of  the  com- 
pleteness  of  the  absolution.     Each  time  it  destroys  the 
guilt  of  the  sin  completely,  so  that  it  can  never  rise 
again,  never  bring  back,  even  to  the  relapsed  sinner, 
its  consequences  of  everlasting  punishment,   while   ab 
the  same  time  it  wakens  to  vigorous  life  again  merits 
that  have  been  killed  a  hundred  times  by  sin.     How 


312  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 

special,  how  ingenious,  how  peculiar,  how  unlike  any 
taing  human  is  this  process ;  and  yet  on  reflection  how 
naturally  outflowing  from  the  Divine  Perfections! 

No  kind,  no  number,  no  duration  of  sins  impede  the 
facility  of  absolution.     Its  efficacy  is  always   instanta- 
neous.    The    word   is  spoken,  and  the  work  is  done. 
Buf  what  is  still  more  marvellous  is  the  little  which  ia 
required   for   absolution,  the    ordinary    fidelity  of  the 
confession,  the  positive  imperfection  of  the  sorrow,  the 
moderate   resoluteness    of  the  purpose  of  amendment! 
Supernatural  as  all  these  must  be,  the  confession,  the 
sorrow,   and     the    purpose,    and   depending   for   their 
validity   on    certain   theological  requirements,    yet  are 
they  not  among  the  commonest  graces  in  the  Church  ? 
Is  attrition  a  romantic  flight  of  generosity,  or  the  pur- 
pose   of   amendment   akin    to  the  heroism  of  martyr- 
dom?    Surely   these    requisites    for   absolution    seem 
completely  within  the  compass  of  our  infirmity.     And 
after  all  it  is  God  Himself  who  is  supplying  more  than 
half  of  them  Himself  by  grace.     In  truth  this  enquiry 
into  the  easiness  of  salvation  is  beginning  to  fill  us  with 
fear,  because  it  is  carrying  us  so    far.     But  might  it 
not  have  been  expected  that  as  Penance  is  more  trou- 
blesome than  Baptism,  so  each  time  that  the  Sacrament 
of  Penance  is   repeated,  the  requisites  for  absolution 
might  have  been  increased,  that  the  sinner  should  have 
bidden  higher   for    pardon    after    every  fall,  and  that 
there  should  have  been  at  least  so  much  punishment 
for  his  relapses  as  consists  in  an  increase  of  his  diffi- 
culties  in   winning  God  back  to  him  again.     Yet  we 
know  that  this  is  not  at  all  the  case.      The  habitual 
sinner  and  he  who  has  once  fallen,  the  sinner  of  a  day 
and  the  sinner  of  half  a  century, — to    all,  the  simple 
requisites  for  absolution  remain  the  same.     Nay  even 


THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION.  313 

where  the  confessor  exacts  from  the  penitent  more 
convincing  evidence  of  liis  repentance,  it  is  only  the 
confessor's  inevitable  infirmity  as  a  creature,  and  as 
such  unable  to  read  the  heart ;  God  leaves  the  light 
conditions  of  absolution  just  what  they  were  before. 
If  all  this  were  not  among  God's  daily  mercies,  how 
inscrutable  would  it  not  seem  to  us;  but  we  are 
obliged  without  fault  of  ours  to  tread  God's  common 
mercies  underfoot,  because  He  has  so  profusely  strewn 
the  whole  earth  with  them,  that  there  is  not  room  to 
move. 

There  still  remains  a  debt  due  to  God  from  remitted 
sin,  a  debt  of  temporal  punishment.  This  men  may 
be  content  to  bear,  seeing  that  salvation  has  been  made 
so  easy  to  them,  and  the  malice  of  their  sins  has  been 
so  great.  But  God  will  not  suffer  this.  Straight  from 
the  confessional  the  Church  leads  her  son  into  the  fer- 
tile and  exuberant  region  of  Indulgences.  There  the 
Precious  Blood  is  made  to  flow  even  over  the  temporal 
consequences  of  forgiven  sin.  God  would  not  stop  at 
mere  salvation.  It  is  His  way  to  overflow  and  to 
exceed.  There  shall  not  be  a  disability  in  the  sinner's 
path,  not  a  relic  of  his  own  foolish  covenants  with  sin, 
which  shall  be  left  to  molest  him.  Nay  the  relics  of 
6in  shall  have  a  strange  sacrament  to  themselves  in  the 
Extreme  Unction  of  the  dying.  But  even  this  is  not 
enough.  Souls  must  be  saved,  and  the  saved  multi- 
plied, and  the  heavenly  banquet  crowded,  even  if  the 
constraints  of  fire  be  needed  to  anneal  the  hastier  works 
of  grace.  Therefore  is  it  that  the  vast  realms  of  purga- 
tory are  lighted  up  with  the  flames  of  vindictive  love. 
Thus  a  huge  amount  of  imperfect  charity  shall  bring 
forth  its  thousands  and  its  tens  of  thousands  for  heaven. 
Redemption  sl.all  cover  the  whole  earth,  and  be  plenti- 


814  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALTATION. 

ful  indeed,  and  the  very  unworthinesses  and  short-com- 
ings  of  the  creature  shall  only  still  more  provoke  the 
prodigality  of  the  Blood  of  the  Creator.  O  the  mercy 
of  those  cleansing  fires!  What  could  have  devised  them 
but  a  love  that  was  almost  beside  itself  for  expedients? 
Yet  even  these  fires  the  sinner  can  avoid,  if  he 
please,  and  without  the  difficulties  of  heroic  charity. 
For  they  shall  be  made  to  cast  their  light  even  upon 
earth  before  their  time,  and  the  Precious  Blood  shall 
be  turned  upon  them  by  Indulgences,  and  they  shall 
be  quenched  before  their  blistering  tongues  have 
touched  the  sinner's  soul.  O  talk  of  the  difficulty  of 
salvation  after  this!  And  what  was  Divine  Love 
doing,  when  we  last  caught  a  glimpse  of  it  at  work? 
As  at  first,  so  at  last,  there  is  the  divine  impatience, 
the  divine  facility,  of  a  Creator  who  seems  as  if  He 
could  not  do  without  His  creature.  We  saw  love,  and 
it  was  bending  over  purgatory,  over  the  net  which  was 
almost  breaking  with  the  portentous  draught  of  unlikely 
souls  which  it  had  taken.  Mary  was  moving  on  her 
throne;  the  saints  were  filling  heaven  with  their  inter- 
cessions; angels  were  ascending  and  descending  every 
moment:  mass  bells  were  ringing  all  over  the  earth, 
and  beads  being  told,  and  numberless  indulgences 
sealed  in  thousands  of  communions,  and  alms  flowing 
in  to  the  poor,  and  penances  and  pilgrimages  being 
performed ;  for  Divine  Love  called  loudly  on  angels, 
saints,  and  souls  of  mortal  men,  to  do  violence  to  it, 
while  Jesus  supplied  the  means  in  His  daily  adorable 
Sacrifice  and  the  plentiful  treasury  of  His  Precious 
Blood.  Our  last  sight  of  love  showed  it  to  us  impa- 
tiently shortening  the  appointed  time  of  those  suffering 
souls,  and  heaven  and  earth  astir,  as  if  some  great 
catastrophe  had  happened,  because  God  Himself  seemed 


TIIE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION.  C15 

M  if  He  wished  to  cut  short  by  swifter  mercies  that 
last  grand  consummate  invention  of  His  creative  love, 
the  quiet,  unreluctant,  beautifying  pain3  of  that  cleans- 
ing fire! 

When  God  came  to  nis  creatures  visibly,  He  scanda- 
lized them.     His  Three-and-Thirty  Years  were  almost  a 
series  of  scandals,  taken  by  cold  hearts  at  what  appeared, 
the  very  extravagances  of  His  condescension.     What 
wonder  then   that  a  scheme  of  salvation  so  easy,  so 
pliant,  so  accommodating,  so  full  of  arrangement,  and 
so  exuberant,  should  be  a  scandal  both  to  heretics  and 
unbelievers  ?     It  is  the  same  Jesus  who  ate  with  pub- 
licans and  sinners,  who  pleaded  with  the   Samaritan 
woman,   who  rewarded   the   humble  petulance  of  the 
Syro-Phcenician,  who  acquitted  the  woman   taken   in 
adultery,  who  absolved  the  Magdalen,  and  who  carried 
off  with  Him  as  His  first  trophy  to  an  instantaneous 
paradise   the   thief   who  hung  upon  the  Cross.     And 
shall  we  call  that  process  hard,  while  our  Mother  the 
Church  is  maligned  all  day  long  for  representing  it  as 
60  easy  and  so  large  ? 

Look  at  God's  side  of  the  question,  and  what  can 
fall  upon  us  but  utter  confusion,  perhaps,  if  it  were 
not  for  His  grace,  utter  unbelief?  Let  us  narrow  our 
view  to  the  mystery  of  our  dearest  Saviour's  Passion. 
Count  it  all  up,  measure  it  in  its  length  and  breadth, 
fathom  its  depth,  handle  it  and  see  what  it  weighs: 
then  pray  and  suffer  for  a  while,  and  count  and  mea- 
sure and  fathom  and  handle  it  all  again,  and  see  how 
it  all  has  grown  ;  then  pray  and  suffer  more,  and  then 
repeat  the  process ;  and  at  the  end  of  a  saintly  life  you 
will  have  but  a  superficial  estimation  of  that  astonish- 
ing life-giving  mystery.  From  the  sacrilegious  com- 
munion and  treachery  of  Judas  to  the  little  garden  of 


316  TfeE  EASINESS  OP  SALVATION. 

Gethsemane,  through  the  brook  up  the  rugged  steep  to 
Jerusalem,  through  the  halls  of  Annas,  Caiphas  and 
Pilate,  and  the  court-yard  of  Herod,  at  the  pillar  of  the 
scourging,  in  the  guard  room  of  the  thorny  crowning, 
along  the  way  of  the  Cross,  up  Calvary,  at  the  nailing 
and  the  elevation,  to  the  last  cry  about  the  ninth  hour 
— follow  the  Eternal  through  this  appalling  drama, 
"which  was  all  for  you,  all  one  excess  of  His  uncontroll- 
able creative  love  to  save  your  soul :  and  then  put  by 
the  side  of  it  the  requirements  which  are  of  obligation, 
our  necessary  amount  of  love  and  worship  of  Him,  tho 
prescribed  frequentation  of  the  sacraments,  the  extent  of 
manly  effort  entailed  upon  us,  and  who  can  say  that 
salvation  is  not  easy,  easy  indeed  to  us,  however  hard  it 
was  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  Incarnate  Word.  And 
then  at  last,  the  Beatific  Vision !  Was  there  ever  such 
a  history  ?  And  yet,  simple  in  her  faith,  and  confiding 
in  the  inborn  beauty  and  celestial  charm  of  truth  to 
protect  itself,  this  is  the  Gospel  which  the  unwearied 
Church  is  now  boldly  proclaiming  to  the  corrupt  popula- 
tions of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  if  it  were  a  Concordat 
between  the  Creator  and  the  Creature. 

Can  we  say  more  ?  Or  if  there  is  more  to  be  said, 
do  we  need  to  have  it  said?  Yes  !  New  love,  more 
love,  unexpected  love  of  God — we  always  need  to  know 
it,  because  we  always  need  to  love  Him  more  and  more. 
We  thought  of  salvation  as  easy  in  itself,  let  us  now 
look  at  it  as  easy  because  of  its  assistances.  It  appears 
already  as  if  the  utmost  allowance  had  been  made  by 
God  for  the  weakness  and  corruption  of  our  nature,  so 
as  to  put  salvation  within  easy  reach  of  us.  But  to 
secure  it  still  more,  He  has  formed  alliances  for  us  with 
Himself  and  the  invisible  world,  and  prepared  a  system 
of  auxiliaries,  both  outward  and  inward,  so  ingenious 


TEE  BUSINESS  OF  SALTATION.  S17 

and  wonderful,  as  to  be  a  stumblingblock  to  those  who 
are  not  of  the  fold. 

First  and  foremost  among  these,  and  entering  more 
or  less  into  all  of  them,  is  Grace,  a  various,  super- 
natural, potent,  and  unintermitting  gift,  about  which 
enough  has  been  said  for.  the  present  purpose  in  the 
last  chapter.  There  is  not  a  characteristic  either  of  it 
or  of  God's  way  of  giving  it,  which  does  not  bear  upon 
the  question  of  the  easiness  of  salvation.  Let  us  then 
keep  this  in  mind,  as  well  as  what  has  just  been  said 
of  the  easiness  of  salvation  in  itself,  while  we  enumerate 
pome  of  those  incredible  aids  and  consolations  which 
God  has  devised  to  make  still  easier  what  was  already 
so  easy  in  itself.  "What  Catholic  is  there  who  does 
not  know  how  the  four  great  wants,  and  duties,  and 
worships  which  the  creature  owes  to  the  Creator,  the 
petition  of  His  infirmity,  the  intercession  of  his  bro- 
therly affection,  the  thanksgiving  of  his  startled  speech- 
less gratitude,  the  intelligent  joyous  acknowledgment 
of  God's  absolute  dominion,  are  supplied  to  him,  with 
an  infinite  worthiness  equivalent  to.  the  worth  of  the 
Creator  Himself,  in  the  Adorable  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass? 
The  perpetual  Real  Presence  of  Jesus  with  His  faithful, 
His  perseverance  in  the  obscure  tabernacle,  and  His 
frequent  benedictions,  which  preside  over  the  evenings 
of  our  toilsome  days,  just  as  Mass  so  beautifully  fills 
the  morning  with  its  light  and  love,  so.  that  it  is  Jesus 
all  day  long,  courting  our  society,  and  mingling  with 
lis  with  an  intimacy  we  get  to  understand  less,  and  to 
prize  more,  the  longer  it  is  vouchsafed, — surely  this  is 
enough  to  supernaturalize  the  whole  world,  to  make 
lard  things  easy,  and  dark  things  bright,  and  throw 
an  invisible  armour  round  us  which  will  charm  our 
lives  against  the  weapons  and  the  wiles  of  hell.     Bat 


o 


13  TEE  EASINESS  OF  SALTATION. 


what  shall  we  say  of  Communion?  All  ideas  of  famili- 
arity with  God,  of  intimacy  with  the  invisible  world, 
of  the  spiritual  union  of  heavenly  love,  fail  us  here. 
The  creature,  trembling,  bashful,  eager,  backward, 
frightened,  delighted,  is  bidden  to  kneel  down,  and  feed, 
not  figuratively  or  by  faith,  but  with  an  awful  bodily 
reality,  upon  his  Incarnate  Creator.  And  this  eating 
of  the  Creator  by  the  creature  is  the  highest  act  of  wor- 
ship which  he  can  perform  !  We  need  not  stay  to 
follow  out  the  many-1'ountained  grace  of  a  good  Com- 
munion, nor  to  see  how  it  branches  out  into  every 
faculty  of  the  soul,  every  power  of  the  mind,  every 
affection  of  the  will,  every  delicate  sensibility  of  the 
conscience,  carrying  with  it  secret  blessings  multiform 
and  manifold,  and  insinuating  even  into  flesh  and  blood 
and  bone  the  seeds  of  a  glorious  resurrection.  And  this 
miraculous  feast  on  our  very  Creator  may  be,  and  He 
loves  it  to  be,  our  daily  bread!  And  this  to  us,  who, 
if  we  rightly  appreciate  our  vileness,  should  be  astonished 
every  morning  that  our  common  food  and  clothing  were 
continued  to  us  still  ? 

All  helps  must  seem  little  after  this  ;  yet  as  they  are 
all  so  many  fresh  disclosures  of  creative  love,  we  must 
not  pass  them  over.  Loneliness  is  one  of  the  dangers 
which  we  have  to  fear,  because  of  the  inability  of  our 
mortal  nature  to  cope  with  the  adverse  forces  of  the 
invisible  world  ;  and,  to  meet  this  danger,  the  provident 
love  of  God  has  given  us  our  Guardian  Angel.  Ever 
at  our  sides  there  is  a  golden  life  being  lived.  A  princely 
spirit  is  there,  who  sses  God  and  enjoys  the  bewil- 
dering splendours  of  His  Face  even  there,  where  he  is, 
nearer  to  us  than  the  limits  of  our  outstretched  arms. 
An  unseen  warfare  is  raging  round  our  steps:  but  that 
beautiful  bright  spirit  lets  not  so  much  as  the  sound 


THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION.  819 

cf  it  vex  our  ears.  He  fights  for  us,  and  asks  no 
thanks,  lut  hides  his  silent  victories,  and  continues  to 
gaze  on  God.  His  tenderness  for  us  is  above  all 
words.  His  cffice  will  last  beyond  the  grave,  until 
at  length  it  merges  into  a  still  sweeter  tie  of  some- 
thing  like  heavenly  equality,  when  on  the  morning 
of  the  resurrection  we  pledge  each  other,  in  those  first 
moments,  to  an  endless  blessed  love.  Till  then  we  shall 
never  know  from  how  many  dangers  he  has  delivered 
us,  nor  how  much  of  our  salvation  is  actually  due  to 
him.  Meanwhile  he  merits  nothing  by  the  solicitudes 
cf  his  office.  He  is  beyond  the  power  of  meriting,  for 
he  has  attained  the  sight  of  God.  His  work  is  simply 
a  work  of  love,  because  his  sweet  presence  at  our  side 
he  knows  to  be  a  part  of  God's  eternal  and  creative  love 
towards  our  particular  soul. 

How  great  a  joy  and  how  real  a  support  it  is  in 
sorrow,  to  have  the  prayers  of  a  saintly  man  !  We 
can  hardly  exaggerate  the  value  of  the  blessing.  To 
seek  it  is  a  sign  of  predestination.  But  look  up  to 
heaven  !  What  are  good  men  on  earth  to  the  giant 
spirits  there,  and  how  many  thousands  and  thousands 
are  praying  to  our  good  Creator  that  we  may  not 
miss  of  the  happy  end  of  our  creation.  There  are 
our  patron  saints  whose  names  we  bear,  the  saints 
whom  we  especially  love,  the  saints  of  our  order,  our 
vocation,  or  our  country,  the  saints  that  were  patrons 
of  the  holy  souls  whom  we  have  liberated  from  pur- 
gatory, those  holy  souls  now  saints  as  well:  all  these 
are  like  so  many  beadsmen  for  us  before  the  throne 
of  the  Most  High.  Glassed  in  Him,  as  in  a  pellucid 
mirror,  they  see  the  threads  of  our  lives  weaving  their 
variously  patterned  web.  They  understand  the  purposes 
of  God  upon  us.     They  are  amazed  at  the  diversity 


820  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 

and  suitableness  of  His  loving  artifices  and  delicately 
suited  vocations.  They  see  the  dangers  which  threaten 
us,  the  temptations  which  penetrate  furthest  into  us, 
the  graces  which  are  weakest  in  us,  the  critical  moments 
of  life  which  peril  us ;  and  as  they  see,  so  do  they  pray. 
If  we  could  but  remember  in  our  struggles  with  sin, 
how  we  are  being  backed  before  the  throne  of  God,  we 
should  surely  spurn  the  tempter  from  us  in  the  exulting 
force  of  our  Christian  joy  and  the  superhuman  energy 
of  the  communion  of  saints. 

The  Mother  of  God!     In  what  surpassing  heights 
is  she  sublimely  throned !     Yet  not  a  day  passes  in 
which  she  does  not  interest  herself  for  us.     A  thousand 
times  and  more  has  she  mentioned  our  names  to  God 
in  such  a  sweet  persuasive  way,  that  the  Heart  of  Jesus 
sought  not  to  resist  it,  though  the  things  she  asked  were- 
very  great  for  such  as  we  are.     She  has  been  in  the 
ercret  of  all  the  good  things  which  have  ever  happened 
to  us  in  life.     She  has  our  predestination  at  heart  far 
more  than  we  have  ourselves.     She  is  ever  mindful  of 
that  second  maternity  which  dates  from  Calvary,  and 
how  we  cost  her  in  the  travail  of  her  dolours  a  price 
which  has  no  fellow  except  the  sacrifice  of  her  Son,  our 
Brother  and  our  God.     What  a  light  does  it  not  shed 
on  life,  to  think  that  the  same  love,  the  nameless  love, 
the  inexhaustible  love,  wherewith  the  heart  of  Mary 
loved  her  Blessed  Son,  is  for  His  sake  and  by  His  own 
command  being   poured    out  over  us  this  very  hour ! 
We  are  living  now  on  earth,  dear  to  heaven,  because  we 
are  suffused  with  its  pathetic  splendours.     Angels  envy 
us  a  love  which  in  their  case  cannot  be,  as  ours  is,  iden- 
tical in  kind  with  that  which  the  sinless  Mother  had  for 
her  adorable  Son.     But  it  is   not  the  poetry  of  this 
thought  on  wliich  we  need  to  dwell,  bright  revelation  as 


1EE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION'.  021 

it  is  once  more  of  God's  creative  love,  but  on  the  real 
help,  the  substantial  support,  the  immense  solid  advan- 
tages, the  positive  efficacy,  of  this  love  of  Mary  in  the 
matter  of  our  salvation. 

Then  we  have  the  power  of  prayer  ourselves.  We 
care  not  dwell  much  on  this.  But  of  how  many  theo- 
logical controversies  is  the  grace  of  prayer  the  secret 
and  the  key  1  The  universal  grace  of  prayer  is  one  of 
the  sweetest,  as  well  as  the  fullest,  expressions  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  easiness  of  salvation.  But  can  prayer 
mean  that  God  will  give  up  His  own  will,  and  accom- 
modate it  to  ours  ?  Ask,  and  you  shall  have ;  seek,  and 
you  shall  find  ;  knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you. 
The  fervent  prayer  of  a  just  man  is  of  great  avail.  In- 
tellectually speaking,  it  is  very  hard  to  believe  in 
prayer ;  but  let  us  spend  but  one  week  in  the  real 
earnest  service  of  God  and  the  exercise  of  a  spiritual 
lite,  and  the  fact,  and  far  more  than  we  ever  surmised 
to  be  the  fact,  will  lie  before  us  bright  beyond  the 
brilliance  of  any  human  demonstrations.  All  experi- 
ence concurs  with  God's  written  word  to  tell  us  that 
the  immutable  is  changed  by  prayer.  The  saints  turn 
aside  the  great  universal  laws  of  nature  by  the  blow  of 
an  ejaculation.  Even  the  unexpressed  will  of  a  soul  in 
union  with  God  is  a  power  with  the  omnipotent  Creator, 
and  looks  like  what  it  cannot  be,  a  limit  to  His  liberty. 
And  this  is  always  in  our  reach,  instant,  lightning-like, 
peremptory,  and  efficacious ;  and  on  its  way  to  heaven 
it  unites  itself  with  the  prayer  of  Jesus  upon  earth, 
with  the  intercessions  of  Mary,  with  the  appeals  of  all 
the  saints,  and  the  earnest  outcries  and  entreaties  of  the 
wide  militant  Church  on  earth,  and  thus  like  a  beautiful 
storm  of  supplication,  like  a  loud-voiced  litany  of  all 
creation,  it  breaks  round  the  throne  of  God  with  majestic 


322  THE  EASINESS  OP  SALVATION. 

power,  and  the  echo  is  heard  in  our  hearts  almost  before 
the  inward  prayer  is  breathed,  and  the  sounds  of  bluster- 
ing temptation  are  hushed  within,  and  the  big  drops  oi 
the  impetuous  rain  of  grace  are  falling  thick  and  fast 
upon  us.  It  will  be  one  of  the  joys  of  heaven  to  learn 
the  secret  of  the  power  of  prayer.  But  now  it  is  a  great 
abyss  to  the  rocky  edge  of  which  we  climb  and  look 
over,  and  all  is  sonorous  darkness,  and  turn  giddy, 
and  recover  not  our  senses  until  we  kneel  down  and 
adore  the  one  only  supreme,  infinitely  lovely,  and  un- 
speakably'adorable  will  of  God. 

Even  dead  things  have  a  wizard  life  put  into  them, 
and  help  us  on  our  road  to  heaven.  Dumb  things  have 
a  voice,  and  inanimate  things  lay  strong  hands  on  us, 
and  turn  us  round  to  Cod.  The  Spirit  of  God  is 
hiding  everywhere, ~so  that  the  world  is  an  enchanted 
place,  and  all  the  enchantment  is  for  God.  Books, 
sermons,  services,  scenery,  and  the  examples  of  those 
around  us,  sorrows,  joys,  hopes,  fears,  winds  and  waves, 
heat  and  cold,  animals  and  plants — strange  powers 
are  touching  them  at  unexpected  moments,  and  they 
electrify  us  with  thoughts  of  God,  nay  often  with  keen 
contacts  of  His  presence.  All  these  things  teach  us  one 
truth,  and  that  one  truth  is  in  itself  an  amazing  help, 
that  it  is  the  will  of  God  to  each  one  of  us  that  we 
should  be  saved  eternally.  And  are  not  all  the  chances 
"blessedly  in  favour  of  the  accomplishment  of  that  dear 
Will  ? 

We  have  already  considered  the  sacraments  of  bap- 
tism, penance,  and  the  eucharist.  But  there  are  other 
sacraments  which  deserve  special  notice  as  auxiliaries 
to  us  in  the  work  of  our  salvation.  Just  when  boy- 
hood is  taking  us  out  into  the  world,  and  when  the 
first-fruits  of  our  young  independence  are  at  once  so 


THE  EASINESS  OP  SALVATION.  323 

clangorous  and  so  dear,  the  sacrament  of  confirmation 
steps  in,  teals  up  the  grace  of  our  baptism,  fills  us  with 
the  one  grace  which  at  that  season  we  need  above  all 
others,  the  gift  of  fortitude,  tries  to  be  beforehand  with 
the  world,  and  enrolls  us  in  the  actual  militia  of  God,  so 
that,  in  addition  to  our  former  character  of  His  sons,  we 
have  now  the  further  character  of  being  His  soldiers, 
and  are  placed  in  a  peculiar  way  under  the  light,  the 
guidance,  and  the  love  of  the  Third  Person  of  the  Most 
Holy  Tiinity.  Nothing  can  be  more  opportune  or  more 
complete  than  this  sacrament  of  force. 

There  are  few  sources  of  grace  in  life  more  plentiful 
than  marriage,  both  because  of  the  abundance  of  its 
joys,  and  also  because  of  its  innumerable  retinue  of 
trials.  It  makes  or  mars  the  happiness  of  the  majority 
of  men,  and  it  is  one  of  the  most  active  powers  on  earth 
in  fostering  or  in  frustrating  the  work  of  God  within 
the  soul.  Now  that  we  are  used  to  the  thought,  it 
seems  most  natural  and  fitting  that  our  Lord  should 
have  exalted  this  domestic  contract  to  the  exceeding 
dignity  of  a  Christian  sacrament.  Yet,  beforehand, 
who  would  have  dreamed  of  such  a  thing  ?  Possibly 
the  souls  are  countless  whom  this  very  sacrament  has 
saved,  and  whom  that  state  of  life  would  have  been 
more  likely  to  ruin  than  to  save,  had  it  not  been  for  its 
sacramental  grace.  In  no  respect  does  religion  so  boldly 
encroach  upon  the  world  as  in  making  marriage  a  sacra- 
ment ;  it  is  almost  the  longest  reach  and  the  most  de- 
terminod  grasp  of  our  sweet  Saviour's  arm,  when  He 
was  bent  to  rescue  His  dear  souls  from  the  fiery  ordeal 
cf  the  world. 

Death  too  with  its  unknown  necessities,  must  have  a 
sacrament  which  it  can  call  its  own,  as  well  to  finish  the 
demolition  of  sin,  as  to  anoint  the  failing  warrior  with  a 


324  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION, 

heavenly  unguent  for  his  last  dire  combat,  and  enalla 
him  in  defiance  of  earthly  calculations  to  elude  the  hold 
which  the  unseen  powers  of  evil  lay  upon  him  in  that 
hour.      If  we  ever  need  help,  will  it  not  be  in   that 
dreadful   agony;    for  neither  earthly  love  nor  earthly 
power  can  help  us  then?     With  many,  doubtless,  the 
battle  has  gone  hard,  though  they  who  stood  around 
neither   heard  nor  saw   the  mortal  wrestle,  and  with 
many  it  was  the  secret  strength  of  that  holy  oil,   the 
hidden  operation  of  that  sacramental  grace,  which  turn- 
ed the  scale,   and  consigned  to  the   Good  Shepherd's 
arm  that  sheep  which  is  now  His  own  for  ever.     Must 
not  God  mean  us  to  be  saved,  when  there  is  not  a  con- 
juncture in  our  fortune,  not  a  winding  in  the  road  of 
life,  but  at  the  turn  we  find  Him  waiting  with  some 
strange  beautiful  invention  of  love,  the  very  mechanism 
of  which  none  but  an.  all-wise  artist  could  have  con- 
trived? 

The  supernatural  power,  which  God  confers  upon 
virtuous  actions,  is  also  a  remarkable  assistance  to  us  in 
the  work  of  our  salvation.  It  is  like  adding  power  a 
hundred-fold  to  the  machines  and  tools  of  the  mechanic. 
Here  again  God  does  not  look  to  the  importance  or 
solemnity  of  the  action,  but  to  the  purity  of  intention 
with  which  it  is  performed.  Each  pious  act,  however 
trivial,  has  three  supernatural  forces  bestowed  upon  it. 
There  is,  first  of  all,  the  force  of  impetration  by  which, 
even  while  we  are  unconscious  and  forgetful  of  it,  our 
prayers  acqviire  a  new  vigour  and  exercise  a  greater  in- 
fluence over  the  adorable  will  of  God.  When  we  con- 
sider how  much  we  want  from  Him,  and  how  almost 
our  whole  life  must  needs  be  spent  in  the  attitude  of 
petition,  even  when  we  are  not  formally  and  directly 
praying,  when  we  reflect  how  our  very  vileness  is  an 


TIIE  EASINESS  OF  SALTATION.  325 

incessant  supplication  to  the  greatness  of  our  Creator, 
we  shall  see  how  this  mysterious  power  of  impetration, 
hung  upon  our  lives,  must  aid  us  in  attaining  heaven. 
Of  ourselves  it  would  seem  as  if  we  were  the  most  un- 
likely creatures  to  be  heard,  relapsed  rebels  against  the 
majesty  of  God,  and  even  when  we  return  to  our  duty, 
surrendering  only  on  jealous  conditions,  and  with  a 
hundred  mean  reserves.  But  this  power  of  impetration 
makes  us  really  worthy  to  be  heard,  and  is  a  sort  of  in- 
visible beauty  glowing  in  our  lives  on  earth,  anticipating 
that  consummate  loveliness  which  gives  the  interceding 
saints  such  power  in  heaven. 

Not  less  wonderful  is  the  power  of  meriting  which 
grace  communicates  to  our  good  works,  as  though  the 
Heart  of  Jesus  were  supposed  to  animate  each  one  of 
them,  and  the  infinite  worth  of  His  Precious  Blood 
were  secretly  folded  up  within  them.  We  have  seen 
how  magnificent  the  rewards  of  heaven  are,  and  yet  one 
obscure  and  momentary  good  work,  full  of  the  love  of 
God,  and  fair  to  look  at  because  of  the  purity  of  its 
intention,  has  only  to  settle  but  for  one  instant  upon  the 
cross  of  Christ  and  thence  wing  its  way  to  heaven, 
where  its  merit  has  such  transcending  power  as  to  pass 
the  guards  and  open  the  gates  of  the  citadel  of  the  King 
of  kings.  See  then  in  what  a  condition  this  places  us 
as  regards  our  salvation.  Earth  is  strewn  so  thickly 
with  the  materials  of  meriting,  that  all  day  long  we 
have  nothing  to  do  but  to  gather  them  up  in  armfuls,  as 
the  poor  gather  firewood  in  the  forest,  and  even  with 
less  toil  than  theirs.  Grace  is  superabundant  and  in- 
cessant and  universal.  We  can  hardly  get  out  of  the 
way  of  it,  if  we  are  perverse  enough  to  try.  The  pro- 
cess of  touching  our  materials  with  this  heavenly  grace 
is  so  easy  and  simple,  that  by  use  it  becomes  almost 


326  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 

natural  to  us,  and  except  for  the  warm  feeling  of  lova 
in  our  hearts,  we  should  in  the  great  multitude  of  our 
actions,  be  almost  unconscious  of  the  process.  So  that 
from  our  waking  in  the  morning  till  our  falling  asleep 
at  night,  we  are  throwing  up  the  merest  dust  and  ashes 
of  earth  to  heaven,  and  it  is  stronger  than  the  laws  of 
its  own  material  vileness,  and  rises  thither,  and  is  put 
into  the  divine  treasury  as  the  purest  gold  of  Christian 
merit. 

But  there  is  yet  another  mysterious  power  infused  by 
grace  into  our  actions,  the  power  of  satisfaction.  Alas! 
our  sins  are  both  tall  and  broad,  and  their  malice  deep 
and  fearful,  while  the  justice  of  God  is  sparkling  intolera- 
bly and  flashing  with  angry  splendour  in  the  light  of 
His  jealous  and  exacting  sanctity.  We  have  need  to  be 
calling  every  hour  on  the  atoning  Blood  of  Jesus ;  for 
nothing  short  of  that  can  satisfy  for  the  guilt  of  sins  to 
which  eternal  death  is  due.  But  through  the  merits  of 
that  same  dear  Saviour  our  own  humblest  actions  can 
appease  the  wrath  of  God,  can  give  Him  real  substantial 
satisfaction,  can  atone  for  the  temporal  punishments  in 
store  for  our  sinful  past,  and  constrain,  O  with  such 
beautiful  constraint!  even  His  justice  to  give  us  orders 
on  the  treasury  of  His  compassion.  It  would  have  been 
indeed  a  huge  mercy,  and  to  our  unillu mined  sense  a 
perfectly  inexplicable  one,  had  our  Creator  been  pleased 
to  let  our  works  of  penance,  our  aching  fasts,  our  cold 
vigils,  our  burning  disciplines,  satisfy  in  some  degree 
the  claims  of  His  high  justice.  But  that  we  6hould  be 
allowed  to  steep  the  slightest  of  our  ordinary  inconve- 
niences, the  trouble  of  getting  up  in  the  morning,  the 
celdness  of  the  east  wind,  the  heat  of  the  summer  sun, 
or  the  insignificant  self-denial  of  d  kind  action. — that 
we  should  be  allowed  to  steep  these  things  in  the  Blood 


THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION.  327 

of  the  Incarnate  Word,  and  make  them  strong,  vigor- 
ous, and  heaven- reaching  satisfactions  for  our  sins,  is 
marvellous  indeed.  What  then  shall  we  say  to  the  love 
which  has  made  all  our  Christian  actions,  even  those  in 
which  there  is  no  inconvenience  at  all,  nay,  still  more, 
even  those  which  are  pleasures  and  privileges,  such  as 
mass,  and  benediction,  and  giving  alms,  and  making  the 
sign  of  the  Cross,  and  reading  the  lives  of  saints,  into 
solemn,  serious,  and  efficacious  satisfactions  for  our  sins? 
Surely  such  a  love  as  this,  busy,  inventive,  ubiquitous, 
must  be  bent  on  saving  us,  and  on  saving  us  as  nearly 
against  our  wills,  as  can  be  with  our  wills  still  free! 

But  He  does  more.  The  power  of  impetration  gives 
us  influence  over  Him  for  others  as  well  as  for  our- 
selves. We  can  thus  obtain  gifts  for  them,  which  we 
could  not  give  ourselves.  The  power  of  meriting  is  a 
personal  privilege.  Our  merits  are  our  own ;  they 
cannot  belong  to  another.  The  glory  of  heaven  is  in- 
exhaustible, so  that  we  may  go  on  multiplying  our 
merits,  like  our  Blessed  Lady,  and  yet  we  shall  not 
drain  the  rewards  of  heaven.  But  strange  to  say  !  we 
may  do  more  than  satisfy  the  justice  of  God  for  the 
temporal  punishment  of  our  own  sins,  whether  that 
punishment  consist  of  the  withdrawal  of  the  graces  of 
repentance,  or  of  the  sorrows  and  calamities  of  life,  or 
of  the  active  fires  of  purgatory.  We  may  have  satis- 
factions to  spare,  satisfactions  which  may  go  into  the 
treasury  of  the  Church  and  supply  materials  for  future 
indulgences,  satisfactions  which  we  may  at  once  transfer 
to  others,  and  God  at  once  accepts  the  transfer,  and 
bestows  the  grace,  withholds  the  punishment,  or  alle- 
viates the  suffering,  as  the  case  may  be.  Nay,  if  Ho 
will,  He  allows  us  to  alienate  the  satisfactions  which  wo 
really  need  ourselves,  and  bestow  them  upon  oihers,  as 


823  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION  . 

an  exercise  of  heroic  charity  towards  our  fellows,  or  of 
disinterested  generosity  towards  His  glory;  so  that  we 
may  not  only  save  ourselves,  but  help  Him  also  in  His 
grand  labour  of  saving  the  world  which  He  created 
without  any  labour  at  all.  He  multiplies  saviours,  by 
making  us  saviours  ourselves,  at  the  very  moment  when 
He  is  also  multiplying  for  us  the  means  by  which  we 
are  the  more  easily  to  save  ourselves. 

But  there  is  still  a  finishing  stroke  left  to  perfect  this 
work  of  divinest  art.  There  is  what  theologians  call 
satispassion.  In  other  words,  for  Christ's  sake,*  and 
because  nothing  about  men  can  escape  the  universal 
contagion  of  His  redeeming  grace,  there  is  in  mere  suf- 
fering, in  the  simple  pressure  of  pain,  in  the  sheer  tor- 
tures of  mental  anguish,  in  the  very  weight  of  lal  our 
and  weariness  of  endurance,  a  secret  underground  vir- 
tue which  is  not  without  its  own  peculiar  acceptable- 
ness  to  the  justice  of  God.  It  is  not  that  He  loves  to 
see  His  creatures  suffer,  it  is  not  that  His  glory  can 
feed  itself  on  mere  torments,  which  are  but  irregulari- 
ties we  have  brought  into  His  glad  creation,  and  formed 
no  part  in  the  primeval  plan  of  Him  who  is  Himself  an 
uncreated  ocean  of  joy,  a  glorious  abyss  of  unutterable 
beatitudes.  His  love  gives  an  inward  dignity  even  to 
the  most  inevitable  suffering  of  the  creature.  Who  can 
doubt  that  it  is  because  of  Christ,  and  the  luminous 
shadow  of  His  redeeming  Passion  which  falls  with  a 
eoft  light  on  every  human  woe  and  mortal  pain,  and  so 
mellows  them  into  that  beautiful  landscape  of  earth 
which  God  once  looked  at  and  blessed  for  its  exceeding 
loveliness?    Thus  He,  who  made  Mary  merit  even 

•  It  is  not  meant  hero  that  there  is  not  satispassion  in  the  sufferings  of 
^iose  who  are  not  in  a  state  of  prace,  or  indeed  of  the  heathen.  Yet  evea 
this  may  be  In  some  way  foi  Christ's  iake,  anJ  b.-cause  of  the  Incarnation. 


THE  EASINESS  OP  SALVATION.  329 

while  she  slept,  communicates  to  us  wretched  sinners 
some  faint  similitude  of  that  astonishing  privilege.  Even 
while  we  are  concentrated  in  our  sufferings,  while  pain 
absorbs  us  in  itself  or  else  distracts  us  by  its  vehemence, 
some  sort  of  dumb  sacrifice  to  the  justice  of  our  Creator 
is  rising  up  from  our  clouded  minds,  as  if  our  bed  of 
pain  were  an  altar  to  His  purity,  or  our  broken  heart 
gave  out  a  faint  odour  of  Christ,  or  our  aching  limb 
were  as  cinnamon  burning  in  the  fire. 

Thus  it  is  that  divine   love   follows  us   everywhere 
with  helps  to  our  salvation.    Thus  it  is  that  God's  bless- 
ed will  that  we  should  all  be  saved  bears  down  upon  us 
with  almost  a  tyranny  of  goodness,  in  order  that  we 
may  not  escape  His  eternal  company  in  heaven.     Down 
to  teaching  us  how  to  make  virtues  of  our  necessities, 
down  to   the  acceptance  of  the   almost   unreasonable 
sacrifice  of  satispassion,  this  will  of  God  for  our  salva- 
tion persecutes   us  with  the   prodigality   of  its   gifts. 
Why  is  it  then  that  so  many  Christians  go  wrong  and 
fail,  so  many  more  at  least  than  ought  to  fail,  even 
granting  that  all  who  fail  are  but  comparatively  few  ? 
Is  the  difficulty  of  salvation  the  only  answer  to  this 
melancholy  fact?     Have  we  not  seen  with  our   own 
eyes  that  it  is  not  difficult  ?    Does  not  experience  teach 
lis  with  children,  and  we  are  as  children  before  God, 
nay  does  it  not  teach  us  with  wise  grown-up  men,  that 
there  are  easy  things  in  which  disobedience  will   not 
obey?     The  facility  of  a  thing  is  sometimes  a  tempta- 
tion to  disobedience.    So  it  will  occasionally  come  across 
us  in  our  meditations  that  God  does  Himself  an  injury 
by  all  this  prodigality  of  His  love,  that  He  makes  Him- 
self too  common,  that  He  does  not  sufficiently  stand 
upon  His  dignity,  that  He  may  miss  of  His  end  by  the 
mere  eagerness  with  which  He  pursues  it,  that  He  may 


830  THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 

hamper  and  embarrass  generous  souls  who  would  run 
more  freely  if  they  were  less  encumbered  with  help, 
that  His  exuberance  may  be  on  the  one  hand  a  tempta- 
tion to  unbelief,  and  on  the  other  an  allurement  to  pre- 
sumption. We  know  such  thoughts  are  sins,  if  we 
deliberately  entertain  them;  and  when  we  do  not  enter- 
tain them,  then  they  are  the  broken  foolish  incoherent 
speech  of  men  intoxicated  with  the  wine  of  God's  love, 
whose  very  babblings  tell  what  is  working  in  their  souls, 
and  how  the  excesses  of  His  goodness  are  perplexing 
them.  He  knows  best;  and  we  know  Him  sufficiently 
well  to  be  assured  that  not  one  artifice  of  His  compassion 
could  be  spared  without  the  sacrifice  of  a  multitude  of 
souls,  who  are  saved  just  by  that  one  thing,  that  single 
special  contrivance  of  creative  love. 

If  there  are  Christians  who  will  not  meditate  upon 
eternal  things,  nor  use  the  same  rules  of  patience  and 
discretion  in  the  matter  of  salvation,  which  they  use  in 
temporal  affairs,  or  if  there  are  any  who  let  evil  habits 
master  them,  or  if  by  a  special  wile  of  Satan  they  will 
not  let  themselves  be  brought  within  the  influence  of  a 
priest,  it  is  not  because  salvation  is  not  easy,  but  be- 
cause they  will  not  comply  with  its  indulgent  requisi- 
tions. Some  men  speak  as  if  salvation  could  not  be 
easy,  unless  it  actually  destroyed  free  will,  and  carried 
them  off  to  heaven  by  force.  Yet  in  reality  the  love 
of  God  goes  as  near  to  this  as  it  can  do  consistently 
with  free  will,  so  near  that  none  but  He  could  have 
gone  so  near,  and  yet  avoided  the  destruction  of  it. 
What  is  it  we  would  have?  Our  benignant  Creator 
lias  bewildered  us  with  the  rapid,  intricate,  enormous 
machinery  of  His  love.  He  has  not  only  outstripped 
our  imagination,  He  has  tried  our  faith.  What  more 
could  we  desire? 


THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION.  031 

But  salvation  is  not  only  easv  in  itself  and  because 
of  its  helps ;  it  is  easy  also  because  it  is  our  interest. 
What  interests  us  is   by  a   law   of  our   nature   easy, 
find  nothing  interests  us  so  much  as  a  thin^  in  which 
our  own  welfare  is   manifestly   and   deeply  involved. 
Tiiis  will  become  evident  to  us  if  we  compare  the  plea- 
sures of  sin  with  the  pleasures  of  a  state  of  grace.     The 
pleasures  of  sin  are  not  lasting.     The  fires  go  out  for 
want  of  fuel.     They  only  burnt  brightly  and  swiftly  at 
first  because  it  was  but  dry  weeds,  thorns,  and  thistles, 
which   supplied  them.     There  is  also  a  want  of  conti- 
nuity in  sinful  pleasures.     Sin  is  not  pleasant  to  look 
back  upon,  as  a  good  action  is.     It  lives  in  excitement 
and  moral  intoxication.     Its  very  vehemence  makes  it 
fubject  to  relapses.     Somehow  also  the  pleasure  of  sin 
wastes  and  devastates  the  spirit;  it  blights  our  human 
affections ;  it  scorches  places  in  our  hearts  where  green 
things  were  wont  to  grow,  and  unlike  Christian  suffer- 
ing, it  does  not  fertilize  hereafter  what  it  is  burning 
now.      It  leaves  behind  it  remorse  which  makes  our 
whole  life  ache,  and  weariness  which  turns  the    very 
sunshine  into  a  burden.    It  causes  us  to  be  peevish  both 
with  ourselves  and   others ;  and  to  a  peevish  man  liis 
own  company  is  more  tedious  than  words  can  tell.     At 
last  bodily  health  fails,  and  our  spirits  give  way  beneath 
us;  for  sin  is  the  twin  brother  of  sickness.     Worldly 
misfortune  not  seldom  supervenes  ;  and  the  loss  of  the 
respect  of  others  is  one  of  those  losses  which  are  almost 
inevitable   to  the  sinful  man.     Most  sinners  also  are 
ambitious  in  their  own  line,  and  they  are  cramped  even 
in  their  means  of  sinning  ;  they  cannot  fulfil  their  own 
dreams  of  profligacy,  nor   sin    upon    the   grand   scale 
which   they  intended.     Pain   and  sickness,  which  are 
always  hard  to  bear,  are  desperately  intolerable  to  a 


832  THE  EASINESS  OP   SALVATION. 

man  who  is  not  in  a  state  of  grace.  They  involve  loss 
of  time,  waste  of  life,  diminution  of  pleasures,  when  all 
is  so  fleeting,  and  sin  so  longs  to  catch  each  moment 
as  it  flies.  Moreover  they  are  so  unmeaning,  or  what 
is  worse,  so  purely  penal  to  the  wicked  man.  Then 
there  is  the  slavish  dread  of  death,  or  what  is  hardly 
a  less  sickening  misery,  the  wild  forced  unhelief  of  the 
eternity  which  is  beyond.  In  a  word,  a  downright 
habitual  sinner  is  in  the  long  run  neither  loved  nor 
loving;  and  if  he  does  not  lose  the  present  world  alto, 
gether,  as  well  as  the  world  which  is  to  come,  it  i 
because  the  justice  of  his  Creator  pays  him  here  for 
such  natural  kindliness  and  moral  respectability  as  he 
may  have  shown. 

Now  contrast  all  this  with  the  delight  of  being  in  a 
state  of  grace.  Is  there  any  earthly  joy  like  the  sense 
of  pardon?  How  deep  it  goes  down  into  our  nature, 
unlocking  such  secret  fountains  of  tears  as  were  far 
beyond  the  reach  of  ordinary  hopes  and  fears  !  There 
is  also  a  satisfyingness  about  it,  which  seldom  accom- 
panies other  joys.  A  void  is  filled  up  in  our  hearts, 
which  had  ached  before.  Peace  comes  where  before 
there  was  a  trouble  of  uncertain  fears,  and  love  awakens 
with  a  keener,  fresher  appetite  for  its  obedient  work 
for  God.  In  prosperity,  in  adversity,  in  the  love  of 
others,  in  the  enmity  of  others,  in  hard  work,  in  old 
age,  in  sickness,  and  in  death,  the  state  of  grace  seems 
just  to  add  what  was  needed,  to  supply  that  very  thing 
the  absence  of  which  was  regretted,  to  throw  light  upon 
the  darkness,  or  to  subdue  the  glare,  to  level  the  rocks 
or  fill  in  the  sunken  places,  to  drain  what  was  marshy 
or  irrigate  what  was  dry.  It  has  shed  upon  the  whole 
of  life  repose,  plenitude,  satisfaction,  contentment.  It 
has  positively  given  us  this  world,  while  it  was  in  the 


TEE  EASINESS  OF  SALTATION.  833 

act  of  transferrins  to  us  the  other.  And  is  not  salva- 
tion  easy,  when  it  is  our  own  present  interest,  our 
immediate  reward,  and  downright  earthly  happiness  to 
boot? 

I  do  not  think  that  if  we  kept  in  view  the  perfec- 
tions of  God,  we  should  venture  to  believe,  unless  the 
Church  taught  us,  that  there  was  in  creation  such  a 
place  as  hell.     When  it  has  been  revealed  to  us  we  can 
perceive,    not  only  its   reasonableness,    but   also   how 
admirably  it  is  in  keeping  with  the  various  attributes 
of  God,  and,  not  least  of  all,  with  the  exquisiteness  of 
His   mercy.      There   is  an  awful   beauty  about   that 
kingdom  of  eternal  chastisement ;  there   is  a  shadow 
cast  upon  its  fires,   which  we  admire  even  while  we 
tremble,  the  shadow  of  the  gigantic  proportions  of  a 
justice  which  is  omnipotent;  there  is  an  austere  gran- 
deur about  the  equity  of  God's  vindictive  wrath,  which 
makes  us  nestle  closer  to  Him  in  love,  even  while  we 
shudder  at  the  vision.     But  to  us  who  live  and  strive, 
who  have  grace  given  us  and  yet  have  the  power  of 
resisting  it,  who  have  room  for  penance  but  are  liable 
to  relapse,  who  are  right  now  but  can  at  any  time  go 
wrong, — who  can  doubt  that  hell  is  a  pure  mercy,  a 
thrilling  admonition,  a  solemn  passage  in  God's  pathetic 
eloquence,  pleading  with  us  to  save  our  souls  and  to 
go  to  Him  in  heaven?     There  is  no  class  of  Christians 
to  whom  hell  is  not  an  assistance.     The  conversion  of 
a  sinner  is  never  complete    v.i'hout  the  fear  of   hell. 
Oiherwise  the  work  cannot  be  depended  on.     It  has  a 
flaw  in  its  origin,  a  seed  of  decay  in  its  very  root.     16 
is  unstable  and  insecure.     It  is  shortlived  and  unper- 
severing,  like  the  seed  in  our  Saviour's  parable  which 
fell  upon  a  rock,   sprung  up  for  a  season,  and  t!:en 
withered  away.     Hell  teaches  us  God,  when  we  are 


334  TEE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 

too  gross  to  learn  Him  otherwise.  It  lights  up  tho 
depths  of  sin's  malignity,  that  we  may  look  down, 
and  tremble,  and  grow  wise.  Its  fires  turn  to  water, 
and  quench  the  fiery  darts  of  the  tempter.  They  rage 
around  us,  so  that  we  dare  not  rise  up  from  prayer. 
They  follow  us,  like  the  many-tongued  pursuing  flames 
of  a  burning  prairie,  and  drive  us  swiftly  on,  and  out  of 
breath,  along  the  path  of  God's  commandments.  O 
Hell !  thou  desolate  creation  of  eternal  justice !  who 
ever  thought  of  finding  a  friend  in  thee? 

Even  to  those  aiming  at  perfection  the  thought  of 
hell  is  an  immense  assistance.     The  common  things  of 
the   faith  are  in  reality  far  above  all  the  high  lights 
of  the  saints.     There  is  no  growing  out  of  or  beyond  the 
ordinary  motives  and  old  truths  of  the  faith  even  for 
those  who  are  most  highly  advanced,  or  are  practising 
the  most  disinterested  love.     There  is  no  habitual  state 
in  which  the  spiritual  life  can  rest  and  stay  itself  up 
in  those  thin  atmospheres.     Besides  which,  there  can  be 
no  bounds  safely  set  to  the  self-distrust  which  the  great- 
est saints  should  have,  and  are  the  most  likely  to  have, 
of  themselves.     This  being  so,  it  is  extremely  desirable 
that  even  those  who  walk  by  love  and  are  aiming  at 
perfection  should  bring  frequently  before  their  minds 
the  judgments  of  God  in  the  terrific  severities  of  hell. 
There  are  times  when  we  faint  and  are  inclined  to  relax 
our  upward  straining,  our  climbing  of  the  steep  moun- 
tain of    God.      Spiritual    sweetnesses  and   periodical 
absences   of    temptation  often   unnerve  us  for  fresh 
attacks  of  the  Evil  One.     We  come  to  do  thing9  in  a 
slovenly  and  remiss  way  from  long  habit.     While  we 
grow  in  merits  we  are  getting  hugely  into  debt  to  the 
greatness  and  the  multitude  of  God's  mercies,  and  thi3 
At  times  uaeobers  us.    Moreover  sanctity  cannot  grow, 


THE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION.  335 

unless  there  be  also  a  growing  appreciation  of  the 
possible  extremities  of  God's  justice.  Neither  is  it 
an  uncommon  delusion  to  think  that  we  are  beyond 
the  fears  and  impressions  of  the  senses,  though  our 
softness  in  mortification  ought  to  teach  U3  better. 
Next  to  a  very  clear  and  penetrating  contemplation 
of  the  attributes  of  God,  nothing  enables  us  to  get  a 
true  hatred  of  sin  more  than  the  horrible  nature  of  its 
eternal  punishments.  In  all  these  conjunctures  the 
frequent  thought  of  hell  is  nothing  less  than  an  im- 
pulse heavenwards.  The  false  delicacy  of  modern  times 
in  keeping  back  the  scaring  images  of  hell,  while  in 
the  case  of  children  it  has  often  marred  a  whole  educa- 
tion, is  a  formidable  danger  to  the  sanctity  as  well  as  to 
the  faith  of  men. 

If  the  terrors  of  the  Lord  contribute  largely  to  the 
easiness  of  salvation,  the  attractiveness  of  His  rewards 
has  also  saved  its  thousands  and  its  tens  of  thousands. 
It  is  hard  to  disentangle  the  influence  of  the  thought 
of  heaven  from  the  purity  of  disinterested  love,  and  it  is 
most  undesirable  even  to  attempt  it.  We  want  some- 
thing to  put  out  the  beautiful  light  of  earth,  and  to 
sully  its  fair  shining.  We  need  a  disenchanting  power 
in  the  midst  of  a  creation  so  lovely,  winning,  and 
specially  alluring  to  our  own  particular  selves,  lest  it 
should  rob  us  of  our  hearts  and  leave  us  nothing  to 
give  to  God.  We  covet  some  unfading  ideal  so  to 
possess  our  souls,  that  we  may  walk  the  world  in  the 
pure  cold  chastity  of  perfect  detachment,  so  that  God 
may  be  our  all.  The  coruscations  of  His  throne  are 
sometimes  too  blinding  to  our  eyes.  That  lofty  region 
of  perpetual  thunders  will  sometimes  stun  us,  when 
littleness  and  imperfection  have  unstrung  our  spiritual 
nerves.     If  we  see  God  now  through  a  glass  darkly, 


336  TEE  EASINESS  OF  SALVATION. 

sometimes  it  must  be  through  many  earth-tinted  glasses 
that  our  weak  eyes  must  look  at  Him.  Hence  the 
need  to  us  of  familiarizing  ourselves  with  all  that  the 
schools  teach  us  of  the  joys  of  heaven.  Hence  the  power 
which  a  simple  soul  acquires  from  reposing  even  on  the 
undeveloped  thought  ot  the  greatness  of  his  Creator's 
recompense.  And  what  are  all  the  joys  of  heaven, 
but  the  accidents,  the  corollaries,  the  overflows,  of  the 
radiant  Beatific  Vision?  So  that  pure  love  mingles 
with  our  blameless  thoughts  of  self,  and  heaven  is 
already  a  power  on  eartli  drawing  us  with  magneti'3 
force  into  the  spheres  of  its  own  abounding  light;  and 
what  is  heaven  but  the  locality  we  give  to  that  dear 
glory  of  our  Incomprehensible  and  Omnipresent  Father, 
in  whose  embrace  we  long  to  hide  ourselves  for  very 
love  ? 

I  conclude  therefore  that  God  is  bent  on  saving  ns, 
that  salvation  is  easy  in  itself,  easy  because  of  its  helps, 
easy  because  of  the  terrors  of  being  lost,  and  easy  be- 
cause of  the  attractiveness  of  its  own  rewards.  This 
is  my  answer  to  those  who  object  to  the  picture  I  have 
drawn  of  God's  creative  love.  It  is  founded  upon 
common  truths  which  everybody  knows,  truths  which 
strike  us  the  more,  the  more  by  assiduous  contempla- 
tion of  His  attributes  we  come  to  know  the  God  to 
whom  we  belong.  It  is  drawn  from  the  distinct  state- 
ments of  Scripture.  It  is  in  harmony  with  the  teaching 
of  the  saints.  It  is  the  doctrine  most  full  of  consolation 
for  creatures.  It  is  the  belief  most  honourable  to  tha 
Creator. 


337 


CHAPTER  IT. 

THZ  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 
0  Israel!  quam  magna  est  domus  Dei.— Baruch. 

It  is  sweet  to  think  of  the  web  of  love  which  God  13 
hourly  weaving  round  every  soul  He  has  created  on  the 
earth.      If  we  bring  the  world  before  us  with  all  its 
picturesque   geography,   the  many  indentations  of  its 
coasts,  the  long  courses  of  its  fertile  rivers,  its  outspread 
plains,  its  wide  forests,  its  blue  mountain  chains,  its 
aromatic  islands,  and  its  verdant  archipelagos,  it  en- 
larges the  heart  to  think  how  round  every  soul  of  man 
God  is  weaving  that  web  of  love.     The  busy  European, 
the  silent  Oriental,  the  venturous  American,  the  gross 
Hottentot,  the  bewildered  Australian,  the  dark-souled 
Malay, — He  comes  to  all.     He  has  His  own  way  with 
each ;  but  with  all  it  is  a  way  of  tenderness,  forbearance, 
and  lavish  generosity.     The  variety  of  their  circum- 
stances, and  those  are  well  nigh  numberless,  are  not  so 
many  as  the  varieties  of  His  sedulous  affection.     Tha 
biography  of  each  of  those  souls  is  a  miraculous  history 
of  God's  goodness.     If  we  could  read  them,  as  probably 
the  Blessed  can,  they  would  teach  us  almost  a  new 
6cience  of  God,  so  wonderfully  and  inexhaustibly  would 
they  illuminate  His  different  perfections.     We  should 
see  Him  winding  invisible  threads  of  light  and  love 
even  round  the  ferocious  idolater.     We  should  behold 
Him  dealing  with  cases  of  the  most  brutal  wickedness, 
iho  most  fanatical  delusion,  the  most  stolid  insensibility, 

22     !* 


338  THE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS. 

and,  even  for  these,  arranging  all  tilings  with  the  exqui- 
site delicacy  of  creative  love.  But  so  astonishing,  so 
overwhelming  is  the  flood  of  divine  light,  such  and  so 
vast  the  very  ocean  of  eternal  predilection,  which  He 
has  poured  upon  His  Church,  that  all  outside  looks  liko 
utter  darkness  because  of  the  dazzling  excess  of  her 
magnificence.  This  blinds  us  so  that  we  cannot  see 
how  what  looks  so  dark  to  us  is  after  all  a  true  light, 
lightening  every  man  that  comes  into  the  world. 

Let  us  turn  our  thoughts  then  to  the  Church.  What 
a  comfort  it  is  to  think  of  the  vastness  of  the  Church, 
and  of  her  holiness  !  There  is  the  incessant  action  of 
those  mighty  Sacraments,  and  the  whole  planet  trans- 
figured with  the  daily  Mass.  There  is  all  heaven  busy, 
as  if  time  were  too  short  for  it,  with  a  hundred  occupa- 
tions for  each  Christian  soul,  set  in  motion  at  that 
soul's  request,  or  self-moved  by  gratuitous  love  and 
pity.  Mary,  Angels,  Saints,  and  suffering  Souls  in 
purgatory,  all  are  hard  at  work.  God  is  employed,  as  i£ 
His  Sabbath  after  creation  were  long  since  past.  Thera 
are  sorrows  to  be  soothed,  temptations  to  be  banished, 
sins  to  be  forgiven,  tears  to  be  dried,  pains  to  be  healed, 
good  works  to  be  assisted,  death-beds  to  be  attended ; 
and  the  bright  throngs  in  heaven,  like  some  religious 
Order  of  Mercy,  are  busy  at  them  all.  O  happy  we  J 
on  whom  all  this  dear  diligence  is  thus  perpetually 
expended ! 

What  is  the  fruit  of  it  all  ?  If  salvation  is  easy, 
and  salvation  is  preached  in  the  Church  of  Christ, 
then  it  ought  to  follow  that  the  great  majority  of 
catholics  are  saved.  We  need  speak  only  of  catho- 
lics. We  will  not  advert,  however  distantly,  to  those 
outside  the  Church.  People  tempt  themselves  about 
them,   and  play   tricks   with  their  gift  of  faith,  fox 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.       839 

which   they   ought   to   bo  thanking  God  their  whole 
lives  long.     We  have  no  business  to  concern  ourselves 
with  God's  relations  to  others:  however  wistfully  the 
t    s  of  love  may  make  us  gaze  upon  that  dark  abyss. 
We  are  catholics.     Let  us  be  content  with  speculating 
about  ourselves.    We  will  suppose,  therefore,  the  objec- 
tion to  be  made,  that  if  salvation  is  easy,  then  practi- 
cally we  ought  to  find  that  most  catholics  are  saved. 
It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  though  salvation  is  easv, 
the  corruption   of  man   is  so   tremendous  that   little 
conies  of  it ;   for  then  it  seems  a  question  of  words 
to   call   salvation   easy.      Salvation    is   the   saving   of 
fallen  man,  and,  therefore,  to  be  really  easy,  it  must 
far  more  than  counterbalance  his  corruption.    The  ques- 
tion is  one  of  too  momentous  a  character,  of  too  thrill- 
ing an  interest,  for  us  to  be  content  with  mere  rhetoric. 
Wo  repeat,  if  salvation  is  easy,  most  catholics  must 
be  saved.     Can  we  venture  to  say  that  such  is  our 
belief? 

Before  answering  so  abrupt  a  questioD,  we  must  be 
allovred  o  few  words  of  prelude.  You  are  asking  us 
what  we  think  about  one  of  God's  secrets,  a  secret 
which  He  has  reserved  to  Himself.  It  is  one  of  those 
questions  into  which  we  may  venture  reverently  to  en- 
quire, in  the  hope  of  finding  fresh  traces  of  His  omni- 
present love :  but  for  no  other  reason  than  this.  We 
may  enquire  that  we  may  love;  we  may  net  enquire 
that  we  may  know.  It  does  not  seem  that  we  anger 
Him  by  such  an  investigation,  provided  we  are  humble. 
But  we  must  remember  we  can  decide  nothing.  After 
all  our  surmises,  inferences,  and  guesses,  the  truth* 
remains,  as  it  was  before,  hidden  with  God.  We  have, 
however,  in  spite  of  much  natural  reluctance,  a  reason 
for  entering  into  it,  which  seems  to  constrain  us  to  ifi 


$40  THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVEIIS. 

as  to  a  work  of  mercy.  Outside  the  Church  the  dread- 
ful error  of  the  day,  which  is  ravaging  the  hearts  of 
men,  is  a  forgetfuiness  that  they  are  creatures.  They 
eeem  in  a  certain  way  to  remember  the  Creator,  but, 
as  was  said  in  the  first  chapter,  in  politics,  in  science, 
in  literature,  in  all  the  departments  of  the  world's 
greatness,  they  Seem  not  to  realize  that  they  are  crea- 
tures. Now  this  error  reaches  faintly  and  feebly  into 
the  hearts  of  true  believers.  There  is  always  in  the 
Church  a  kind  of  evil  echo  of  the  noise  which  the 
world  is  making  without.  Bub  it  is  not  more  than 
an  echo.  Hence  the  spiritual  physicians  of  the  times 
come  across  an  unusual  amount  of  suffering,  which 
good  souls  feel,  from  doubts  about  their  relations  with 
God,  questionings  of  His  justice  and  His  goodness  which 
will  hardly  be  silenced,  and  which  it  were  wild  work, 
and  almost  ruin,  to  try  to  silence  by  main  force.  Such 
men  find  a  difficulty  in  their  most  intimate  religious 
life,  for  which  we  can  think  of  no  name.  It  is  not 
simply  temptation  against  the  faith.  It  is  not  a  disgust 
with  the  spiritual  life.  It  does  not  seem  to  rest  in  the 
will  at  all,  but  in  some  perversity  of  the  mind  which  is 
60  humble  that  it  is  a  shame  to  call  it  by  so  hard  a  name 
as  perversity.  We  believe  it  to  be  an  habitual  inca- 
pacity of  realizing  that  they  are  creatures,  in  the  full 
truth  and  in  all  the  bearings  of  that  idea.  This  inability 
might  be  brought  on  in  these  days  by  much  and  incau- 
tious reading  of  newspapers,  or  by  an  absorbing  interest 
in  the  politics  of  the  day,  or  by  being  mixed  up  witii 
the  existing  commercial  system  of  the  world,  or  by  not 
having  always  been  catholics,  or  by  having  misused  the 
£rst  graces  of  conversion,  or  from  sheer  want  of  gener- 
osity with  God.  But  it  is  a  shadow,  or  an  echo,  or  a 
■taint  in  the  believer's  heart,  of  the  prevailing  pestilence 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.      341 

of  modern  society.  Just  as  in  the  presence  of  a  cog- 
nizable plague  we  have  frequently  a  mild  form  of  some 
congenial  disease,  so  does  the  sickness  of  the  times  in- 
fect even  many  of  the  faithful  with  a  languor  of  a 
somewhat  similar  description.  It  is  because  I  have 
been  called  to  so  many  cases  of  this  sort,  that  I  have  com- 
posed the  present  Treatise,  happy  if  I  may  be  allowed 
to  console  one  afflicted  brother,  or  to  ease  one  tempted 
soul,  or  to  enlighten  one  bewildered  mind, — more  happy 
than  I  can  say  if  I  can  get  from  one  of  the  creatures, 
whom  He  loves  so  well,  an  additional  degree  of  love  for 
cur  compassionate  Creator. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  view  contained  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapters  is  taking  God's  side  exclusively,    and 
putting  forward  only  a  one-sided  statement.     But  this 
is  not  really  true ;  however,  we  are  not  concerned  to 
argue  the  point.     We  look  only  to  a  practical  result. 
But  what  in  truth  is  it  which  forms  the  chief  part  of 
the  suffering  to  the  souls  just  now  described?     It  is 
that  they  will  obstinately  look  orly  at  one  side  of  the 
question,   and   the   side   which   concerns    them    least 
instead   of  that  which  concerns  them  most,   as  that 
which  God  puts  before  them;  and  that  they  will  per- 
tinaciously extend  the  difficulty  by  bringing  in  a  num- 
ber of  problems,  in  the  solution  of  which  they  indivi- 
dually have    no  interest    at   all,    and  which  they  can 
hardly  investigate,  at  least  in  their   temper  of   mind, 
without  forgetting  what  is  due  to  God.    They  seem  to 
have  no  eye,  except  for  dark  possibilities.     They  have 
a  morbid  hankering  to  climb  giddy  heights,  to  loiter  on 
the  edge  of  precipices,  to  balance  themselves  on  the 
craters  of  volcanoes.    They  who  love  danger  shall  perish 
in  it.     We  had  better  let  God's  thunderbolts  alone,  and 
not  meddle  with  them,  were  it  even   to  feel  the  sharp- 


842     THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

ness  of  their  fiery  points.  We  only  ask  these  poor 
sufferers  now  to  look  at  the  other  side  of  the  question  ; 
and  not  only  to  look  at  it,  but  to  pray  about  it,  and 
meditate  on  it,  and  familiarize  themselves  with  it. 
Mere  reading  is  nothing.  A  religious  inquiry  without 
prayer  is  a  mockery  of  God.  We  can  define  nothing. 
We  can  unriddle  none  of  God's  secrets.  But  these 
souls  have  fed  on  gloomy  considerations  until  they  are 
almost  poisoned.  Now  let  us  invite  them  to  follow  ua 
patiently  through  the  brighter  considerations  which 
commend  themselves  to  an  opposite  temper  and  dispo- 
sition, and  which  if  not  of  greater  weight  than  their 
own  views,  are  at  least  of  equal  authority  with  theirs, 
besides  the  additional  recommendation  of  their  sunshine. 
It  will  not  be  too  much  to  ask  of  our  readers  to  pay 
an  accurate  attention  to  the  language  of  a  chapter  on  a 
subject  so  capable  of  misunderstanding  as  the  present. 
When  we  treat  of  each  consideration  separately,  wo 
seem  to  be  exaggerating,  from  the  mere  fact  that  we 
do  not  mention  other,  and  perhaps  opposite,  considera- 
tions in  the  same  breath,  which  is  obviously  impossible. 
Let  us  bear  in  mind  then  that  this  inquiry  is  in  no 
respect  a  matter  of  theology.  It  teaches  no  doctrine 
of  contrition.  Its  facts  have  no  doctrinal  bearing.  It 
is  a  view  of  human  conduct,  combined  with  a  view  of 
God's  dealings  with  men,  which  must  necessarily  bear 
upon  it  the  impress  of  particular  personal  experience,  as 
well  as  of  particular  personal  character  and  disposition. 
But  above  all  things  we  must  bear  in  mind  what  has 
been  abundantly  manifest  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
namely,  that  salvation  is  easy,  not  because  of  any  of  the 
requirements  of  God's  sanctity  being  abated,  but  because 
of  the  abundance  and  vigour  of  His  grace.  Thus  when 
*we  speak  of  deathbed  graces,  it  is  not  that,  because  of 


THE  GIIEAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS.  345 

the  pitifulness  of  the  pains  of  death,  God  consents  to  bo 
reconciled  to  us  on  easier  terms  than  when  we  are  strong 
and  well,  or  that  it  is  consistent  with  His  perfections 
to  restore  us  to  His  favour  without  that  inward  vital 
change  of   the  sin-loving  or  world-loving  heart,    that 
radical  work  in  the  soul,  implied  in  real  interior  repent- 
ance.   But  we  judge  from  what  we  see  that  it  frequently 
pleases  Him  in  that  great  hour  so  to  reinforce  the  opera- 
tions of   grace  as   to  counterbalance,  and   more   than 
counterbalance,  the  physical  disadvantages  under  whieh 
the  spiritual  processes  of  the  soul  would  otherwise  have 
laboured   in  the  trial  of  such  a  terrific  moment.     So 
again,  when  we  speak  of  the  Sacraments,  we  speak  of 
them  accurately,  that  is,  as  implying  certain  earnest, 
vigorous,  inward  dispositions  on  our  parts,  no  less  than 
a  peculiar  gracious  intervention  on  the   part  of  God. 
It  is  plain  we  cannot  keep  repeating  all  this  in  every 
sentence.     We  must  therefore  ask  our  readers  to  read 
the  whole  chapter  in  the  abiding  thought,  that  along 
with   every  compassionate   intervention  of  God  there 
remains,  heightened  rather  than  abated,  the  essential 
necessity  of  real,  solid,  inward  repentance  and  actual 
transformation  of  heart,  on  the  part  of  those  who  may 
be  favoured  with  His  extraordinary  graces.     Nay,  the 
extraordinariness  of  a  grace  consists  precisely  in   the 
penitent  having  these  dispositions  at  such  a  moment  and 
under  such  circumstances.     To  a  thoughtful  reader  the 
result  of  the  enquiry  must  be  to  deepen  his  sacred  fear 
and  to  stimulate  him  to  greater  earnestness.     All  exhi- 
bitions of  the  excesses  of   God's  love   produce   these 
results,  else  would  the  very  Bloodshedding  upon  Calvary 
be  an  encouragement  to  men  to  sin.     I  believe  no  man. 
would  be  less  likely  to  trust  to  a  death-bed  conversion, 
than  one  who  had  witnessed  such  a  conversion.     lie 


344  THE  GBEAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

would  so  tremble  to  see  so  much  resting  on  so  little, 
Buch  a  peculiar,  dubious,  intricate,  abnormal  strife,  such 
a  terrible  swinging  of  eternal  interests  on  such  an  un- 
steady balance,  such  a  miraculous  rescue  of  a  soul  hang- 
ing more  than  half  over  the  edge  of  such  abysses,  that 
he  would  be  the  most  likely  of  all  men  to  fulfil  after- 
wards the  apostle's  injunction  of  passing  the  time  of 
his  sojourning  here  in  fear.  If  any  of  us  therefore  rise 
up  from  the  enquiry  now  before  us  only  more  hopeful, 
and  not  also  more  strict,  I  believe  the  fault  will  be  in 
our  own  want  of  seriousness  and  honesty  with  God. 

With  this  prefatory  caution  and  admonition  we  may 
proceed  therefore  to  answer  the  question  before  us  thus : 
— We  are  inclined  to  believe,  that  most  catholics  are 
ultimately  saved.  Of  course  we  do  not  know  it,  and  we 
do  not  wish  to  know  it.  But  as  the  objection  is  started, 
we  look  attentively  at  the  Church  as  far  as  we  have  the 
power,  and  the  result  of  our  observations  is,  that  to  the 
best  of  our  belief  the  great  majority  of  her  children  save 
their  souls.  We  will  give  our  reasons,  one  by  one,  for 
this  conclusion,  begging  the  reader  once  more  to  remem- 
ber that  we  are  not  laying  down  the  law,  and  that  the 
necessities  of  many  souls  have  beguiled  us  into  an 
enquiry,  upon  which  of  ourselves  we  should  never  have 
dreamed  of  entering.* 

*  Lest  it  should  be  supposed  that  there  was  anything  unusual  in  discussing 
this  question  in  a  practical  and  popular  book,  I  would  venture  to  remind 
the  reader  that  it  has  been  the  common  practice  of  catholic  writers,  both  in 
Italy,  France,  and  England.  Among  preachers  we  baveMassillon,  Bourdaloue, 
Le  Jeune,  Lacordaire,  Segneri,  the  Blessed  Leonard  of  Port  Maurice,  and 
indeed  almost  all  Italian  Quaresimali,  treating  of  this  alarming  subject.  la 
practical  and  popular  treatises,  for  reading,  we  have  Drexelius,  Bellarmine, 
llecupitus,  D'Argentan,  Bossuet  in  his  Meditations,  Bail,  Da  Ponte,  and  our 
own  Clialloner,  whose  meditations  have  been  translated  into  various  lan- 
guages. In  Catechisms  we  have  Lipsin,  Turlot,  who  is  translated  into 
various  languages,  and  the  excellent  Dr.  Hay.  Turlot  asks  why  preachers 
do  not  often  teach,  often  explain,  often  inculcate  this?    And  he  remarks, 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.     315 

There  seems  to  bo  a  sort  of  dishonesty  in  putting 
forward  the  view  which  is  to  occupy  this  chapter,  with- 
out confessing  that  the  authority  of  theologians,  so  far 
as  there  can  be  any  authority  in  a  question  of  this 
nature,  is  upon  the  whole,  though  not  greatly,  on  the 
other  side,  while  the  authority  of  Scripture  seems  to  be 
with  us.  Very  many  writers  appear  to  hold  that  the 
number  of  the  reprobate  very  far  exceeds  the  number 
of  the  saved,  not  only  taking  the  heathen  into  account, 
but  taking  heretics  tinto  account  also — and  not  only 
taking  heretics  into  account,  but  also  the  baptized  in- 
fants of  the  faithful,  whose  deaths  are  said  nearly  to 
equal  those  of  adult  catholics,  and  also  the  infants  of 
heretics  who  have  received  baptism ;  so  that,  in  their 
view,  the  question  is  narrowed  to  adult  Catholics,  and 
of  these,  perhaps  most  writers,  though  hardly  those  of 
the  greatest  weight,  venture  to  say  that  only  a  minority 
are  saved.  Recupitus,  the  Jesuit,  in  his  treatise  on  the 
Number  of  the  Predestinate,  enumerates  Lyra,  Denys  the 
Carthusian,  Maldonatus,  Cajetan,  Bellarmine,  Fasolus, 
Alvarez,  Raiz,  Smising,  Drexelius,  and  perhaps  Molina, 
as  holding  this  opinion,  together  with  most  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church.*  Sylvester,  Carthagena,  Grana- 
dus,  Franciscus  de  Christo,  are  quoted  on  the  other  side. 
Suarez,  who  on  the  whole  seems  to  bo  on  the  milder 

Qusestio  lisec  (de  numero  salvandorum)  non  minus  est  utilis  quam  cnriosa. 
Also  the  Tesori  di  confidenza  in  Dio,  published  at  Rome  by  the  Propa- 
ganda press,  in  1840,  discusses  the  question  at  great  length.  Parte 
Seconda.  p.  316.  This  last  book,  it  is  important  to  add,  is  on  the  side  of 
the  question  urged  in  this  chapter;  it  is  important,  considering  1.  tho  data 
of  the  book,  2.  the  place  of  its  publication,  3.  the  press  from  which  it  issues, 
4.  its  scriptural  character,  and  5.  its  popular  style,  and  its  being  written 
in  the  vernacular, 

•  Yet  an  eminent  patristic  scholar  informs  me  that  this  is  by  no  means 
the  case  with  the  Fathers,  especially  as  to  tho  interpretation  of  tho  con- 
tested passages  of  Scripture. 


846     THE  GEEAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

side,  in  one  place  expressly  includes  the  infants,  and  so 
does  Lorinus,  in  his  commentary  on  the  hundred  and 
thirty-eighth  psalm.* 

Cajetan,    expounding  the   parable  of  the   Virgins, 
teaches  that  even  of  those  who  live  moderately  well  in 
the  Church,  and  take  a  certain  amount  of  care  of  their 
consciences,  one  half  are  lost.     Suarez  stigmatizes  this 
opinion  as  "  exceedingly  rigorous."     He  then  says,  "  Ifc 
is  a  doubtful  matter ;  but  I  think  a  distinction  should 
be  made.     By  the  name  of  Christian  we  may  under- 
stand all  those  who  glory  in  the  name  of  Christ,  and 
profess  to  believe  in  Him,  although  many  of  them  are 
heretics,  apostates,  and  schismatics.     Now  speaking  in 
this  way  it  seems  to  me  probable  that  the  greater   part 
of  them  are  reprobate,  and  it  is  in  this  general  way  that 
I  understand  the  less  mild  opinion.     Now,  as  heretics 
and  apostates  have  always  been  very  numerous,  if  we 
add  to  them  the  number  of  the  faithful  who  make  bad 
deaths,  the  two  together  will  plainly  exceed  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  die  well.     But  if  by  Christians  we 
understand  those  only  who  die  in  the  Catholic  Church, 
ifc  seems  to  me  more  likely,  in  the  law  of  grace,  that  the 
greater  number  of  them  are  saved.     The   reason  is, 
because,  first  of  all,  of  those  who  die  before  they  are 
adults,  the  great  multitude  die  baptized  ;  and  as  to  the 
adults,  although  the  majority  of  men  often  sin  mortally, 
yet  they  often  rise  again  from  sin,  and  thus  pass  their 
lives  rising  and  falling.     Then  again  there  are  but  few, 
who  are  not  prepared  for  death  by  the  Sacraments,  and 
grieve  for  their  sins  at  least  by  attrition;  and  this  is 
enough  to  justify  them  at  that  time,  and  after  their  jus- 
tification, the  time  left  them  is  so  short  that  they  can 
easily  persevere,  and  do  so,  without  any  fresh  mortal 

*  Recupitns  de  num.  pisedes.  cap.  ii.  Hi. 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.  3-17 

sin.  Therefore,  all  things  considered,  it  is  probable 
that  the  majority  of  Christians  in  this  stricter  sense  are 
saved.''* 

Vasquez  considers  it  clear   from  Scripture  that  the 
number  of  the  lost  is  greater  than  the  number  of  the 
saved;  but  he  adds  that  there  may  be  a  doubt  about  the 
faithful,  and  that  some  piously  think  that  the  majority 
of  them   are   saved,   and   that   the   Sacraments  of   the 
Church,  as  well  as  the  parable  of  the  wedding  garment, 
look  that  way.     He  himself  however  refuses  to  take 
either   side.f     Even   Billuart   will   not   allow    to  the 
Theologians  quoted    by    Recupitus   any   more   certain 
foundations  for  their  opinion  than  for  that  of  their  adver- 
saries. J     Cornelius  a  Lapide  argues  at  length  against 
the  benignant  conclusion  of  Suarez,  and  says  that  the 
greater  number  of  living  theologians  at  Rome  in  his  day 
thought  the  general  laxity  of  morals  in  the  world  a  strong 
proof  that  the  sterner  opinion  was  also  the  more  correct. § 
The  Blessed  Leonard  of  Port  Maurice  maintains,  in  his 
sermon  for   the   third   Sunday   in   Lent,   that  a  great 
number  of  Christians  are  lost,  because  their  confessions 
are  null  through  want  of  true  sorrow. ||     St.    Alphonso 
on  the  contrary  says,  in  his  Istruzione  ai  predicatori, 
that  be  holds  it  for  certain  that  of  all  those  who  come  to 
the  sermons  at  a  mission,  whosoever  should  die  within  a 
year,  would  with  difficulty  be  lost.1T 

According  to  the  rigid  view,  if  the  deceased  baptized 

*  Suarez  lib.  6.  De  Comparat.  praedest.  cap.  3.  n.  C. 

t  Vasq.  in  primam  partem  disp.  101.  cap.  4. 

%  Billuart,  De  certitud.  praedest.  diss.  9.  art.  7. 

§  For  the  argument  of  the  fewness  of  the  saved  taken  from  the  Fathers, 
see  a  dismal  work  published  at  Rorne  in  1752,  entitled  Fugginius  de  paucitate 
adulturuin  fidelium  salvaudorum. 

||  Quaresimale  p.  195. 


Biflii-ilmente  si  duitna,  letteia  scconda. 


848  TIIE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS, 

infants  of  the  faithful,  together  with  the  deceased  bap- 
tized infants  of  heretics,  added  to  the  adult  Catholics 
who  are  saved,  do  not  make  a  majority,  and  if  also  the 
statement  be  true*  that  the  deaths  of  the  children  of 
catholics  nearly  equal  in  number,  as  Ruiz  says,  the 
deaths  of  adult  catholics,  then  must  the  number  of  adults 
who  are  saved  be  so  small,  that  it  follows  that  the 
Church  of  the  redeemed  in  heaven,  the  conquest  of  our 
Blessed  Saviour's  Precious  Blood,  is  chiefly  composed  of 
children,  of  those  who  on  earth  never  merited,  never 
loved,  never  used  their  reason  at  all.  Is  not  this  a 
conclusion  so  repugnant  as  to  be  inadmissible?  I  think 
this  consideration  of  very  great  weight. 

F.  Lacordaire  has  treated  the  subject  with  his  usual 
power,  and  also  with  great  delicacy,  in  his  discourse  on 
the  results  of  the  Divine  Government,  which  forms  part 
of  his  Conferences  of  1851.  He  inclines  to  believe  that 
a  majority  of  mankind  are  saved,  and  dwells  especially 
on  children,  women,  and  the  poor.  His  exposition  of 
the  Scripture  argument  is  very  remarkable  and  ingenious, 
especially  his  view  of  the  words,  "  Few  are  chosen," 
from  the  light  shed  upon  them  by  the  context  in  the 
two  places  in  which  that  passage  occurs.  Bergier, 
speaking  of  the  number  of  the  elect,  says,  "  A  solid 
and  sufficiently  instructed  mind  will  not  allow  itself  to 
be  shaken  by  a  problematical  opinion ;"  and  again,  after 
describing  the  disagreement  of  the  Fathers  and  com- 
mentators on  the  subject,  he  adds,  "  If  the  parables  of 
the  Gospel  might  be  taken  as  proofs,  we  should  rather 
conclude  that  the  greater,  not  the  less,  number  would 
be  saved.     Jesus  Christ  compares  the  separation  of  the 

*  Le  tiers  des  en  fans  meurt  entre  la  premiere  et  la  septieme  anne*e  de  sa 
n  ilssance,  plus  de  la  moine"  entre  u  premiere  et  la  quatorziemo  anne*e.— 
Ann uaire  du  Bureau  des  Longitudes. 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.      319 

good  and  bad  at  the  last  judgment,  to  the  division  of 
the  good  grain  from  the  cockle.  Now,  in  a  field  culti- 
vated with  care,  the  cockle  is  never  more  abundant 
than  the  wheat.  He  compares  it  to  the  separation  of 
the  bad  fish  from  the  good  ;  now  to  what  fisher  did  it 
ever  happen  to  take  fewer  good  fish  than  bad  ?  Of  ten 
virgins  called  to  the  marriage  five  are  admitted  to  the 
company  of  the  spouse.  In  the  parable  of  the  talents 
two  servants  are  recompensed,  one  only  is  punished  ;  in 
that  of  the  feast,  only  one  of  the  guests  is  rejected."  * 
Da  Ponte,  in  his  treatise  on  Christian  Perfection,  seems 
also  to  lean  to  the  mihler  opinion ;  and  Lipsin,  the 
Franciscan,  in  his  catechism  maintains  that  the  opinion 
in  favour  of  the  majority  of  Catholics  being  saved  is  the 
"  more  probable,''  and  more  "  consonant  to  the  glory  of 
God,  the  merits  of  Christ,  and  the  hopes  of  men;"f  and 
Lipsin  says  expressly  that  he  is  speaking  only  of  adults. 
The  interpretation  given  by  F.  Lacordaire  of  the 
words,  Many  are  called,  but  few  are  chosen,  rests  en- 
tirely on  the  two  contexts  in  which  the  passage  occurs. 
In  the  twentieth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  compared  to  a  father  of  a  family  who  hires 
labourers  into  his  vineyard  at  successive  hours  of  the  day, 
and  then  when  the  evening  comes,  all  are  rewarded, 
and  all  receive  the  same  reward,  notwithstanding  the 
inequalities  of  their  time  of  labour.  Those,  who  came 
early  in  the  day,  complain,  and  the  master  answers 
that  he  has  given  them  what  he  agreed  to  give,  that  he 
has  a  right  to  do  what  he  likes  with  his  own,  that  the 
last  shall  be  first,  and  the  first  last,  and  that  many  are 

•  Bergier.  Dist.  Theol.  au  mot.  E'us.    TraitiS  de  la  Vroie  Religion,  t.  10, 
p.  355.    Lacordaire  Conferences  iv.  168. 

T  Da  Ponte,  Do  Perfect.  Christiana,  tr.  I.  Lipsin.  Catech,  Uistor.  Tlieolog. 
Logout,  p.  446.    De  numcro  sulvandoruoi. 


50      THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 


called,  but  few  chosen.    Now  it  is  clear  that  the  diffi- 
culty of  this  parable  does  not  consist  in  the  small  num- 
ber who  are  recompensed,  for  all  are  recompensed,  but 
in  the  inequality  of  the  recompense.     The  conclusion, 
that  there  are  but  few  who  are  saved,  would  have  no 
connection  whatever  with  the  parable.     It  seems  rather 
to  mean  that  many,  who  are  called  by  a  common  grace, 
from  being  the  first  become  the  last,  while  a  few,  who 
are  chosen  by  a  special  grace,  from  being  last  become 
first.     In  the  twenty- second  chapter  of  the  same  Gospel 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  compared  to  a  king  who 
makes  a  marriage-feast  for  his  son.     The  guests  refuse  to 
come.     Whereupon  the  king  sends  his  servants  out  into 
the  highways  and  byeways  to  bring  in  a  mixed  multi- 
tude to  the  feast.     Of  all  these  only  one  is  rejected  ;  and 
that,  because  he  has  not  on  a  wedding  garment.     Cast 
him  out,  says  the  king,  into  the  darkness  where  there  is 
weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth,  for  many  are  called  but 
few  are  chosen.     Now  here  again  the  difficulty  of  the 
parable  cannot  consist  in  the  few  who  are  definitely 
admitted  and  remain  to  enjoy  the  feast ;  for,  miscella- 
neous multitude  as  they  are,  there  is  but  one  rejected. 
If  in  such  circumstances  as  these,  it  is  said  that  many 
are   called,  but   few   chosen,  what  can   it   mean   but 
that  there  are  few  who  receive  such  a  special  grace  as 
permits   them   to  behave  with  more  familiarity  than 
others  in  divine  things,  or  to  count  on  an  unusual  favour 
of  God  in  their  regard  ?     It  is  the  temptation  of  some, 
says  the  great  Dominican,  who  are  called  as  it  were  by 
chance  upon  the  highway  of  life  to  replace  other  guests 
who  were  invited  and  have  not  come,  to  persuade  them- 
selves that  they  are  the  objects  of  God's  special  predi- 
lection, and  to  neglect  to  make  their  calling  sure  by  an 
exact  fidelity ;  and  it  is  our  Lord's  object  in  this  para- 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.      351 

We  to  teach  them,  that  if  on  the  one  hand  there  are 
last  who  become  first,  on  the  other  hand  no  man  must 
dare  to  presume  it  of  himself.* 

Here  is  a  whole  mass  of  conflicting  opinions,  not 
perhaps  very  clear.  Let  us  now  do  the  best  we  can  to 
collect  the  suffrages  of  theologians  in  this  matter. 
The  controversy  seems  to  stand  in  some  such  attitude 
as  this  : — 

1.  Many  writers  hold  that  the  majority  of  mankind 
will  be  lost,  because  heathen,  and  unbelievers,  and 
heretics  make  up  a  majority. 

2.  Some  hold  that  a  majority  of  all  mankind,  taking 
heathen,  heretics,  and  Christians  in  one  mass,  will  be 
6aved. 

*  Salmeron  (t.  vil.  tr.  33)  and  Cornelius  a  Lapide  (on  Matt,  xx )  give  simi- 
lar interpretations.    Cornelius  a  Lapids  says  many  are  called  to  ordinary 
grace  and  the  observance  of  the  commandments,  and  few  to  the  observance 
of  the  counsels.    Bergier  in  his  treatise  de  la  Religion,  quoted  as  a  note  in 
Migne's  edition  of  the  same  author's  dictionary,  says,  -  Parmi  les  commenta- 
teurs,  point  d'uniformite'.    Pour  ne  parler  que  des  catholiques.  Cajetan, 
Mariana,  Tostat,  Luc  de  Bruges,  -Maldonat,  Corneille  de  la  Pierre,  Me"nochius, 
le  pere  de  Picquigny,  admettent  l'une  et  I'aufre  explication  ;  entendent  par 
tlut  ou  les  hommes  sauve's,  ou  les  fideles,    Jansemus  de  Gand  pense  que  ca 
dernier  sens  est  le  plus  naturel:  Stapleton  le  soutient  contre  Calvin ;  Sacy 
dans  ses  Commen taires,  juge  que  c'est  le  sens  litteral;  domj  Calmet  semble 
lui  donner  la  preference.    Eutbymius  n'  en  donne  point  d'autre  ;  il  suivait 
S.  Jean  Chrysostome.    Le  pere  Hardouin  soutient  que  c'est  le  seul  sens  qui 
b'accorde  avec  la  suite  du  texte;  le  pere  Berruyer  exclut  aussi  tout  autre 
■eat;  c'est  pour  cela  qn'il  a  e"te  condamne',  mais  la  faculte'  do  theologie  n'a 
certainement  pas  voulu  censurer  les  interpretes  catholiques  que  nous  venons 
de  citer,  et  ils  sont  suivis  par  beaucoup  d'autres.    Quel  dogme  peut  on  fonder 
eur  un  passage  susceptible  de  deux  sens  si  diffe'rents?    And  again  he  says, 
Pour  fixer  un  peu  plus  cette  discnssion,  nous  disons  qu'il  y'a  trois  opinions 
6ur  le  nombre  des  catholiques  pre'destine's.    Quelques  docteurs  pensent  qu'il 
y'aura  plus  de  catholiques  eMus  que  de  rcprouves ;  ils  se  fondent  sur  ce  qu'il 
n'y  a  eu  qn'un  seul  convive  exclu  du  banquet  nuptial.    D'autres  croient 
qu'il  y  aara  autant  de  reprouve's  que  d'elus.    Ils  se  fondent  sur  le  parable 
des  Vicrges,  dont  cinq  etaient  sages  et  cinq  folles.— La  plupart  des  theologieus 
enseignent  qu'il  y  aura  plus  de  re'prouve's  que  d'elus.    lis  s'appuient  sur  ces 
jtamles :  Pauci  vero  elecii.    II  n'y  a  done  rieu  de  certain  a  cc  lujct.   Le  savant 
Suares  regarde  la  premiere  comma  plus  probable." 


852      THE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS. 

3.  Some,  to  enhance  their  rigorous  view,  maintain  that 
the  children  are  to  be  taken  into  the  account,  and  yet  even 
so  a  majority  of  mankind  will  be  lost,  or,  in  other  words, 
that  very  few  adults  will  be  saved. 

4.  Some,  to  enhance  their  mild  views,  maintain  that 
the  children  may  be  put  out  of  the  reckoning,  and  yet 
that  even  so  a  majority  of  mankind  will  be  saved. 

5.  None  of  these  views  regard  Catholics  exclusively. 

6.  Of  those  writers  who  regard  Catholics  exclusively, 
some  maintain,  that  even  taking  the  children  into  account, 
the  majority  will  be  lost. 

7.  Others  maintain,  that  the  majority  will  be  saved, 
but  the  majority  is  only  to  be  reached  by  reckoning 
in  the  children:  this  is  perhaps  the  most  common  view 
of  all.  • 

8.  Others  hold,  that  looking  at  adult  Catholics  only, 
as  many  will  be  lost  as  are  saved:  this  opinion  is  founded 
on  the  Parable  of  the  Virgins. 

9.  Others  teach,  that  the  far  greater  majority  of  adult 
catholics  will  be  lost. 

10.  Others  think,  that  a  small  majority  of  adult 
catholics  will  be  saved. 

11.  Others  finally,  to  whose  opinion  I  strongly  adhere 
myself,  believe  that  the  great  majority  of  adult  catholics, 
perhaps  nearly  all  of  them,  will  be  saved. 

12.  In  point  of  theologians,  the  rigorous  opinions 
regarding  the  whole  mass  of  mankind  have  an  over- 
whelming authority. 

13.  The  rigorous  opinions  concerning  the  damnation 
of  the  majority  of  adult  catholics  have,  as  far  as  my 
reading  has  gone,  numerically  more  theologians  on  their 
Bide  than  the  milder  view. 

14.  But  if  we  subtract  moral,  ascetical,  and  hortatory 
authors,  who  write  to  rouse  and  to  impress  their  readers, 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.      353 

and  retain  only  pure  theologians  in  the  stricter  sense,  I 
think  the  authorities  on  the  two  sides  will  be  not  far 
from  evenly  balanced,  the  excess  being  however  in  favour 
of  the  rigorous  views,  so  far  as  numbers  are  concerned, 
and  in  favour  of  the  milder  views,  so  far  as  weight  ia 
concerned. 

15.  The  more  recent  theologians  also  exhibit  a  leaning 
to  the  milder  view;  and  in  many  cases  the  rigorous 
views  are  held  in  conjunction  with  opinions  on  the 
ultimate  state  of  unbaptized  infants,  which  probably 
no  single  Catholic  in  the  Church  now-a-days  would 
hesitate  to  disclaim. 

16.  Some  of  the  authorities  on  the  milder  side  are  oi 
very  great  weight. 

17.  In  the  use  of  the  Scripture  argument  the  triumph 
is  completely,  and  most  remarkably,  on  the  milder  side. 
Indeed  the  Scripture  proof  seems  quite  unmanageable  in 
the  hands  of  the  rigorists. 

Thus  then  it  appears,  that  the  question  is  completely 

an  open  one,  and  that  the  view,  which  is  to  occupy  this 

chapter,  is  not  only  lawful,  but  pious.     Nevertheless,  if 

I   could  persuade  myself  that  the  discussion  had  but 

little  practical  bearing  on  a  holy  life,  or  were  likely  ia 

any  way  to  lead  to  a  disesteem  of  strictness,  I  should 

eagerly  avoid  entering  upon  it.     It  seems  however  aa 

if  the  inquisitive  infidelity  of  the  day  had  so  far  touched 

the  faith  of  many  good  men,  that  questions  have  been 

started  in  their  thoughts  which  mere  contempt  cannot 

now  put  to  silence,  and  that  in  order  to  restore  to  their 

diseased  minds  a  more  true  view  of  the  fatherly  character 

of  God,  it  is  necessary  to  bring  before  them  distinct 

considerations,  founded  upon  what  we  know  of  Him,  in 

opposition  to  those  darker  reflections  which  keep  them 

hack  from  a  cordial  surrender  of  themselves  to  God,  and 
23  t 


854  TEE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS. 

which  even  when  they  are  true,  become  untrue  t>y 
claiming  to  be  exclusive.  Begging  then  of  God  to  bless 
this  enquiry  concerning  a  secret,  which  for  our  good  as 
well  as  His  own  glory  He  has  hidden  from  us,  let  us 
proceed  reluctantly  upon  our  way. 

We  know  well  that  when  men  judge  others,  whether 
individuals  or  multitudes,  they  generally  come  to  an 
erroneous  conclusion  from  the  mere  fact  that  they  judge 
over-havshly.  It  is  part  of  the  evil  that  is  in  us  to  put 
the  worst  construction  upon  what  we  see,  and  to  make 
no  allowance  for  the  hidden  good.  Moreover  we,  unwit- 
tingly almost,  judge  by  the  worst  parts  of  our  own 
disposition,  not  by  the  best.  We  believe  our  evil  to  be 
common  to  all,  and  our  good  peculiar  to  ourselves.  Wre 
consider  evil  a  decisive  test,  while  good  is  only  allowed 
to  establish  a  possibility.  This  is  our  rule  for  others : 
we  reverse  it  for  ourselves.  We  also  find  that  our  judg- 
ments get  milder  in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  our  own 
strictness.  The  judgments  of  holy  men  sometimes 
astonish  us  by  their  laxity,  while  men,  not  even  fre- 
quenting the  sacraments,  or  in  any  way  professing  to  be 
religious,  will  be  scandalized  by  the  least  look  of  world- 
liness  in  a  priest  or  a  religious.  They  will  detect  with 
the  most  amazing  sensitiveness  the  slightest  inconsis- 
tency in  the  practice  of  an  openly  devout  person.  Thus 
we  may  lay  it  down  as  a  rule,  that  the  severity  of  our 
judgments  of  others,  even  where  judgments  are  legitimate 
and  unavoidable,  is  an  infallible  index  of  the  lowness  of 
our  own  spiritual  state.  The  more  severe  we  are,  the 
lower  we  are.  We  must  therefore  be  on  our  guard 
against  this  well-known  infirmity  in  the  present  enquiry. 
There  is  something  in  the  adorable  compassion  of  God 
which  looks  like  voluntary  blindness.  He  seems  either 
Hot  to  eee,  or  not  to  appreciate,  the  utter  unworthiness 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.  355 

of  men;  at  least  lie  goes  on  His  way  with  men  as 
thougV  He  did  not  see  it.  The  Bible  is  full  of  instances 
of  this.  Now  the  more  we  are  with  God,  and  the  closer 
our  union  with  Ilim  is,  the  more  shall  we  catch  some- 
thing of  a  similar  spirit,  which  will  destroy  the  natural 
keenness  of  our  detection  of  evil,  and  control  more  ma- 
terially our  judgments  of  our  fellow-men. 

We  must  be  careful  also  to  make  a  distinction  which 
is  often  forgotten,  and  which  bears  directly  upon  the 
present   question.      What   we   see   around   us   among 
catholics  may  be  far  from  satisfactory,  and  the  authen- 
tic statistics  which  reach  us  from  catholic  countries  may 
contain  much  that  is  unhappy  and  disheartening.     Yet 
we   must  distinguish   at   any   given  moment  between 
catholics   not   living  so  as  to  be  saved,  and  their  not 
being  ultimately   saved   at  last.       In  other  words  we 
cannot  go  altogether  by  what  we  see.     Immense  num- 
bers are  converted,  and  go  to  the  sacraments,  and  per- 
severe in  their  new  life  ;  and  then  they  are  less  promi- 
nent.    We  do  not   hear  of  them.      The  statistics  of 
Easters,  jubilees,  retreats,  missions,  and  the  like,  come 
less  under  our  notice  than  statistics  of  crime  or  misery. 
Sin  strikes  us,  and  is  startling,  whereas  ordinary  good- 
ness is  a  tame   affair,  and  passes  unobserved.     Then 
there  are  multitudes  of  men  who  have  an  exceedingly 
bad  chapter  in  their  lives,  some  ten  or  twenty  years  of 
wickedness,  and  then  change,  as  if  the  volcanic  matter 
in  them  had  burned  out.     This  is  what  men  lightly  call 
sowing  their  wild  oats.     As  one  set  of  these  men  passes 
into  a  better  siate,  another  is  succeeding  them,  so  that 
the  appearance   of  things   is   an  incessant  current  of 
headstrong  sin  sweeping  all  before  it,  unredeemed  by 
the  hopeful  features  of  the  case,  which  the  succession  of 
sinners  hides  effectually  from  our  view.    Moreover  old 


356     THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

age  withdraws  its  thousands  of  actors  from  the  stage  of 
6in,  and  so  they  disappear  from  view.  It  is  wretched 
enough  to  think  of  these  conversions  of  old  age,  which 
seem  to  have  more  of  nature  in  them  than  of  grace.  A 
man's  passions  are  worked  out.  He  becomes  a  moral 
wreck.  The  avenues  of  sensual  pleasure  are  closed  to 
him  by  the  aches  and  pains  and  dull  insensibilities  of 
age.  In  a  number  of  cases  the  very  powers  of  sinning 
are  diminished.  And  so,  what  with  fear,  what  with 
disgust,  and  what  with  making  a  virtue  of  necessity,  the 
old  man  gives  himself  to  God,  such  little  of  him  as  is 
left,  and  God  accepts  the  gift,  because  along  with  all 
these  self-interested  motives  there  is  in  the  man's  heart, 
by  His  grace,  a  real  inward  repentance  for  sin,  and 
a  saving  faith  in  the  atoning  Blood  of  Christ.  It  is 
not  for  us  to  criticize  this  amazing  forbearance  of  God; 
who  knows  if  we  may  not  one  day  stand  in  need  of 
it  ourselves?  But  so  it  is.  It  is  God's  affair ;  and  in 
His  infinite  wisdom  He  is  pleased  to  take  the  offering, 
and  to  save  the  soul.  Multitudes  again,  even  before 
old  age,  fall  into  sickness  in  the  prime  of  life  and  the 
middle  of  their  sins,  and  they  pass  out  of  the  outer 
world  of  men  into  the  inner  world  of  the  priest,  that 
world  half  visible  and  half  invisible,  where  daily  mira- 
cles of  grace  are  wrought,  and  where  the  weary  minister 
of  God  is  for  ever  drawing  those  earthly  consolations 
which  are  more  to  him  than  the  dearness  of  domestic 
affections,  and  support  him  sweetly  in  his  incessant 
toils.  God  partly  admits  him  to  His  secrets,  and  takes 
him  into  the  inner  room  of  sickness,  and  shows  him 
the  machinery  of  salvation  doing  its  finest  and  most 
hidden  work. 

While  we  are  gazing  at  this  picture,  we  must  not 
forget  to  realize,  and  it  is  no  easy  matter,  what  we 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS'.  357 

have  seen  in  a  former  chapter,  how  little  God  actually 
requires  as  absolutely  indispensable  to  salvation.     One 
confession  at  the  hour  of  death,  ordinary  fidelity  in  con- 
fessing, a  purpose  of  amendment  which  has  no  tempta- 
tion then  to  be  insincere,  a  sorrow  which  is  within  easy 
reach  of  any  one  who  is  in  earnest,  with  huge  allow- 
ances made  for  the  clouded  weariness  and  distracting 
unsettlements  of  pain,  which  interfere  with  the  sensible 
fervour  of  prayer,  but  not  with  the  grace  of  true  interior 
repentance, — and  the  soul  that  has  spent  close  upon  a 
century  of  sin  is  saved,  saved  because  God  puts   the 
requibites  for  absolution  so  low,  saved  because  He  gives 
the  grand  gift  of  repentance  so  gratuitously,  and  changes 
hearts  so  swiftly,  saved  because  by  His  merciful  ordi- 
nance faith  survived  grace  for  all  those  years,  saved 
because  the  Precious  Blood  of  Jesus  is  such  a  supera- 
bundant ransom,   such   a  mighty  conqueror  of  souls. 
When  a  man  is  converted,  he  has  to  make  little  outward 
change,  so  far  as  the  eyes  of  men  are  concerned,  in  his 
ordinary  life.     Few  will  notice  that  he  has  begun  to  go 
to  mass.     Few  see  him  enter  the  confessional,  or  kneel 
at  the  altar  rail.     Men  are  never  very  sedulous  in  find- 
ing out  good,  and  it  will  even  be  some  time  before  it  is 
perceived  that  habits  of  swearing,  or  lying,  or  intem- 
perance are  gone,  or  that  violence  of  temper  has  passed 
away.     Moreover  the  convert  has  relapses,  and  some- 
how these  are  always  very  much  seen  and  noticed,  and 
they   conceal   completely   the   gradual   formation  of  a 
virtuous  habit ;   and  besides  this,  a  great  deil  which 
i9  externally   disagreeable  and  also  morally  unworthy 
will  remain,  and  almost  hide  a  man's  conversion  even 
from  his  wife  and  child.     It  is  not  generally  mortal  siQ 
which  makes  men  so  unbearable  to  others.     It  is  more 
often  selfishness,  and   temper,   and  churlishness,   and 


358  THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

ferocity,  and  coarseness,  and  such  like,  which  may  all 
he  far  short  of  mortal  sin,  or,  perhaps  in  the  cases  of 
rude  persons,  of  any  sin  at  all.  There  is  also  much  in 
the  demeanour  of  a  converted  sinner  which  is  very  puz- 
zling. He  has  had  certain  habits  of  sin  ;  and  though 
he  no  longer  falls  into  the  mortal  sins  in  question,  he 
has  wavs  about  him  which  simulate  the  old  habit  of 
sin.  He  talks  as  if  he  was  still  under  its  dominion.  He 
omits  things  which  a  man  would  characteristically 
omit,  if  he  had  such  a  habit.  He  even  falls  into  venial 
sins  congenial  to  the  old  habit ;  and  it  may  often  happen 
that  it  shall  look  as  if  outward  circumstances  alone  pre- 
vented his  positively  committing  the  old  mortal  sin. 
But  it  would  be  endless  to  enumerate  all  the  things 
which  baffle  our  judgment  of  the  insincerity  of  a  man's 
conversion.  We  may  depend  upon  it  that  in  a  thousand 
spots,  which  look  desert,  waste,  and  fire-blackened, 
God's  mercy  is  finding  pasture  for  His  glory. 

It  is  very  observable  that  evil  is  of  its  own  nature 
much  more  visible  than  good,  while  goodness  is  invi- 
sible like  God.  Evil,  like  the  world,  is  loud,  rude, 
anxious,  hurried,  and  ever  acting  on  the  defensive; 
while  goodness  partakes  of  the  nature  of  Him  who 
alone  is  truly  good.  It  imitates  His  way6  of  secrecy 
and  concealment,  and  is  impregnated  with  His  Spirit 
of  unostentatious  tranquillity  and  self-sufficient  con- 
tentment The  infuriated  mob  that  burns  down  a 
church,  and  tramples  the  Blessed  Sacrament  under  foot, 
is  a  much  more  obvious  and  obtrusive  phenomenon 
than  the  dozen  Carmelite  nuns  who  have  been  doing 
the  world's  hardest  work  for  it  before  that  tabernacle 
door  for  years.  The  whole  priesthood  of  the  Church, 
busy  at  its  work  of  mercy,  catches  the  eye  much  less 
fchan  a  single  regiment  in  scarlet  marching  down  upon 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.      859 

its  fellow  Christians.  Even  in  the  individual  this  in- 
visible character  of  goodness  is  perceptible,  and  that 
not  merely  in  the  shy  spirit  and  instinctive  bashfulness 
of  great  sanctity,  but  even  without  a  man's  intending 
it,  or  being  aware  of  it,  or  taking  any  pains  about  it. 
When  we  know  and  love  a  man,  and  are  in  habi-s  of 
daily  familiar  intercourse  with  him,  we  know  his  faults 
almost  in  a  week.  We  learn  where  to  distrust  him, 
and  where  he  is  not  unlikely  to  fail.  But  the  revela- 
tion of  his  goodness  is  a  very  slow  process.  He  is 
continually  taking  us  by  surprise  with  disclosures  of 
virtues  which  we  never  dreamed  that  he  possessed. 
He  comes  out  on  great  occasions  much  better  than  wo 
expected.  In  little  things  too,  and  the  ordinary  wear 
and  tear  of  life,  it  is  only  by  degrees  that  we  become 
conscious  how  much  real  humility,  patience,  sweetness, 
and  unselfishness  there  is  about  him.  There  are  very 
few  men  whom  we  do  not  come  by  experience  to  re* 
speot,  if  only  we  continue  to  love  them.  If,  as  Words- 
worth says,  all  things  are  less  dreadful  than  they  seem, 
bo  is  it  true  that  all  men  are  better  than  they  seem. 
We  must  allow  very  largely  for  this,  when  we  look 
at  the  lives  of  catholics,  and  pass  a  judgment  on  the 
likelihood  of  their  salvation. 

The  visible  character  of  evil  also  brings  strongly 
before  us  one  of  the  most  frightening  features  of  the 
world,  and  one  which  it  is  hard  to  dwell  upon  for  any 
length  of  time  without  some  amount  of  gloom  passing 
on  our  spirits.  It  is  the  ceaseless  activity  of  Satan. 
His  activity  is  appalling :  his  presence  almost  ubiqui- 
tous :  his  tyranny  universal,  overwhelming,  and  suc- 
cessful. Of  a  truth  he  needs  no  repose.  To  go  and 
lie  down  upon  his  bed  of  fire  would  be  no  rest  to  him. 
Thus  the  world  seems  to  be  always  in  a  storm  of  his 


SGO  THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

creating.  One  while  he  is  persecuting  the  good,  even 
in  the  cloister.  Another  while  he  is  bent  on  ruininor 
some  man  who  is  doing  a  notable  work  for  God.  Now 
he  is  urging  on  the  multitudes  of  a  whole  country,  and 
making  them  drunk  with  the  spirit  of  anarchy  and 
sacrilege.  Now  he  is  quietly  weaving  webs  of  unholy 
diplomacy,  with  a  fair  show  of  equity  or  patriotism, 
around  the  Holy  See,  that  he  may  cramp  its  energies 
for  good,  and  demoralize  whole  nations.  Here  he  is 
getting  up  an  intricate  slander  which  shall  throw  dis- 
credit on  God's  servants,  and  dishonour  the  cause  of 
religion.  There  he  is  sapping  the  foundations  of  a 
religious  order  by  the  insidious  prudence  of  relaxation, 
or  destroying  the  stability  of  some  grand  work  of  mercy 
by  leading  the  founders  to  seek  their  own  reputation 
and  honour  in  it  instead  of  God's  glory.  One  while  he 
is  inspiring  the  press,  and  hiding  the  poison  that  he 
spreads  under  the  rhetoric  of  morality  and  right. 
Another  while  he  is  artfully  providing  for  coldness, 
dissension,  and  misunderstanding  among  those  whose 
power  for  God  consisted  in  the  cordiality  of  their 
union.  Even  the  chosen  of  the  earth,  the  holy  and 
the  good,  are  running  to  and  fro  upon  the  earth,  till 
they  are  weary,  doing  Satan's  work  and  dreaming  it  is 
God's.  Who  can  look  on  such  a  scene  without  dis- 
quiet and  dismay  ?  But  then  we  must  remember  the 
prominent  visible  character  of  evil.  Satan  is  active : 
can  we  suppose  that  God  is  not  ten  thousand  times 
more  active,  even  though  we  see  Him  less  ?  The  very 
reason  why  we  see  Him  so  little  is  because  we  do  not 
follow  Him,  and  search  out  His  ways,  and  trace  the 
footprints  of  His  operations.  If  we  did  we  should  be 
astonished  at  the  immensity,  the  vigour,  and  the  ver- 
satility of  the  maguiticeiit  spiritual  work  which  He  is 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.  361 

doing  all  over  the  world  in  every  year.  Just  as  science 
tells  us  that  the  earth's  surface  is  never  still,  but  that 
some  portion  of  it  somewhere  all  day  and  night  is- 
quaking  and  vibrating  with  the  pulsations  of  the  forces 
bound  up  within  the  centre  of  the  planet,  so  to  the 
observant  and  discerning  eye  of  faith  the  whole  natural 
world  of  created  wills  and  ways  is  tremulous  and 
troubled  by  the  forces  of  the  supernatural  world,  now 
forcing  their  way  to  the  surface,  now  engulfing  whole 
regions,  now  raising  lofty  summits  of  new  mountains 
out  of  deep  valleys,  and  now  altering  the  very  features 
of  civilization  by  diverting  the  mighty  currents  of  the 
mind  and  purpose  of  humanity. 

If  the  vigour  of  God  abides  with  such  intensity  in 
every  particle  of  the  inanimate  world,  everywhere  wed- 
ding strength  to  beauty,  so  that  the  union  might  capti- 
vate with  its  exquisite  niceties  the  intelligence  of  angels, 
if  in  every  mineral  atom  He  abides  intimately  by  His 
presence,  His  essence,  and  His  power,  how  much  more 
shall  we  believe  that  He  informs  and  controls  the 
world  of  men  by  the  energies  of  an  allwise  providence, 
whose  majestic  operations  have  all  of  them  the  one 
single  scope  and  end  of  love  for  their  blissful  accom- 
plishment !  We  have  already  seen  enough  of  the  doc- 
trine of  grace  to  be  aware  to  what  an  almost  incredi- 
ble extent  it  discloses  the  divine  activity.  Temptation 
is  feeble,  languid,  intermittent,  and  inert,  compared  with 
this.  Satan  grows  weary,  even  though  he  cannot  rest, 
while  the  perseverance  of  grace  is  incomparable,  like 
the  freshness  of  that  eternal  mercy  from  which  it  eman- 
ates. Moreover  we  know  that  Satan  is  bound  by  the 
coming:  of  our  Lord.  The  little  Babe  of  Bethlehem 
circumscribed  his  monstrous  empire.  If  he  is  as  wild 
and  neroe  as  ever,  he  has  now  found  the  length  of  his 


362  THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

chain,  and  beyond  that  his  fury  is  unavailing.     Even 
■within  his  greatly  lessened  sphere,  the  Cross  of  Christ 
is  a  perpetual  torture,  an  endless  defeat  to  his  malicious 
wiles.     The  very  presence  of  the  Church  is  an  unbro- 
ken exorcism  to  the  baffled  prince  of  darkness.     Her 
benedictions  keep  extruding  him  from  one  corner  of  crea- 
tion after  another.     Her  exorcisms  dispossess  him  even 
of  the  hidden  spiritual  strongholds  in  which  he  craves 
to  keep  his  court.     Her  holy  presences  are  tortures  to 
him,  worse,  some  of  them  at  least,  than  the  fires  of 
that  abyss  which  is  the  fallen  creature's  home.     Up 
and  down  all  lands  St.  Raphael  is  for  ever  binding 
him  in  the  upper  uninhabitable  parts  of  the  spiritual 
Egypt.     Who   then   can   believe   that   in   God's   own 
cloistered  dwelling-place,  the  sanctuary  of  His  Church, 
Satan's  activity  will  prevail  against  His,  and  that  He 
will  be  defeated  even  where  His  choice  most  loves  to 
dwell?     Satan  broke  into  the  first  paradise  of  God, 
when  he  was  young,  and  before  the  Cross  of  Christ  had 
bound  him,  and  what  followed  ?     The  savins  of  Adam 
and  of  Eve  by  a  more  copious  salvation,  the  superabun- 
dance of  redeeming  grace,  the  glorious  reign   of  the 
Queen  of  the  Immaculate   Conception,  and  the  total 
triumph  of  the  Incarnate  Word  !     Much  more  will  like 
consequences  follow  now.     We  must  not  tremble  too 
much  at  Satan's  power.     He  is  under  our  feet  already. 
We  are  stronger  far   than  he.     We   must  remember 
the  story  of  the  servant  of  Eliseus  in  the  fourth  book 
of  Kings.     The  servant  of  the  man  of  God,  rising  early, 
went  out,  and  saw  an  army  round  about  the  city,  and 
horses,  and  chariots ;  and  he  told  him,  saying,  Alas, 
alas,  alas,  my  lord,  what  shall  we  do?     But  he  an- 
swered, Fear  not :  for  there  are  more  with  us  than  with 
them.     And  Eliseus  prayed,  and  said,  Lord,  open  his- 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.     3G3 

eves  that  he  may  see.   And  the  Lord  opened  the  eyes  of 
the  servant,  and  he  saw,  and  behold  the  mountain  was 
full  of  horses  and  chariots  of  fire,  round  about  Eliseus. 
The  very  inconceivable  magnificence  of  God  would 
lead  us  to  suppose  that  the  number  of  the  saved,  which 
is  one  of  the  greatest  glories  of  His  creation,  would  be 
something  far  beyond  our  utmost  expectations.*   Has  it 
not  been  so  in  every  experience  we  have  ever  had  of 
God?     Has  He  not  always  outdone  His  own  promises, 
as  well  as  outstripped   our  imaginations?     Have   not 
His  gifts  always  come  in  an  embarrassing  abundance? 
Have  we  ever  formed  an  expectation  of  mercy  or  of 
grace,  which   has  not   been   fulfilled   far   beyond   our 
hopes,  as   if  not  even  our  necessities,  much  less  our 
merits,    but    His    own    liberality,   were    the   rule   of 
answered  prayer  ?     Is  it  likely  to  be  less  so,  or  are  we 
likely  to  find  God  changed  all  at  once,  in  a  matter,  in 
which  not  only  our  happiness,  but  the  honour  of  His 
dear  Son  and  the  interests  of  His  own  wonderful  glory, 
are  so  exceedingly  involved  ?     There  is  something  so 
uncongenial  in  the  thought,    that  it  surely  cannot  be 
received  unless  it  be  revealed.    There  is  no  word  which 
describes  His  love  of  us  as  our  Creator  so  faithfully 
as  magnificence,  and  will  His  love  as  our  Last  End  be 
less  magnificent,  less  efficacious  in  the  triumph  of  ita 
glorious  attractions?     There  is  no  word  to  express  His. 
prodigal  expenditure  in  our  redemption,  except  mag- 
nificence ;   can  we  conceive,  in  a  divine   work,  of  a 
magnificence  in  the  design  which  shall  not  be  equalled 
by  magnificence  in  the  execution  ?    No  one  doubts  that 
hell  will  be  unspeakably  more  dreadful  than  we  ex- 
pected ;  because  no  one  doubts  but  that  our  little  views 
will  be  found  foolishly  narrow  when  compared  with  the 
*  See  the  note  from  Lessius  at  page  125. 


864  THE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS. 

transcendant  realities  of  God.  So  will  it  be  found  with 
our  notions  of  the  number  of  the  saved.  Yet,  when 
we  think  of  what  the  catholic  church  is  and  of  all  the 
privileges  involved  in  being  a  catholic,  it  seems  only 
reasonable  to  expect  that  on  the  whole  far  more  of  them 
would  be  saved  than  lost.  There  is  no  magnificence  in 
this  idea.  There  would  be  a  sense  of  failure  and  in- 
completeness in  the  opposite  opinion.  No  one  surely 
can  think  steadily  and  continuously  on  the  matter 
without  coming  to  this  conclusion.  33ut  of  necessity, 
because  He  is  Himself,  God  will  go  far  out  of  sight  of 
our  beliefs  in  the  actual  splendour  of  His  accomplish- 
ments. So  that,  from  what  we  know  of  God,  we  should 
aus;ur  that  very  few  catholics,  comparatively  speaking, 
would  be  lost.  The  salvation  of  almost  all  of  them 
seems  to  be  claimed  by  the  very  magnificence  of  God. 
He  is  a  bold  man,  who,  without  the  Church  to  back 
him,  believes  that  God's  own  gift  of  free  will,  which  Ho 
has  mysteriously  allowed  to  do  Him  so  much  injury  in 
time,  shall  have  a  final  and  complete  victory  over  Him 
for  eternity;  and  if  God  is  love,  which  is  of  faith,  then 
hell  will  be  no  victory  to  Him. 

The  honour  of  the  Precious  Blood  would  imply  and  re- 
quire all  this  as  much  as  the  magnificence  of  God.  It  is  a 
hard  saying  that  the  majority  of  those  for  whom  it  was 
shed,  and  on  whose  souls  it  has  been  actually  sprinkled, 
should  be  lost  eternally.  We  are  purposely  turning  our 
eyes  away  from  all  without  the  Church,  saying  nothing, 
defining  nothing,  hinting  nothing,  guessing  nothing.  It 
is  not  our  concern.  But  how  hard  will  it  be  to  say  that 
of  those  souls,  who  have  been  actually  washed  in  it 
again  and  again,  the  majority  are  lost.  It  has  cleansed 
them  in  baptism,  and  printed  an  ineffaceable  character 
u^on  their  brows.    It  has  absolved  them  again  and 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.      365 

Dgain.  It  has  run  through  them  with  thrills  of  fervour 
and  fortitude  in  confirmation.  Its  red  living  pulses  have 
beaten  with  their  human  life  within  the  heart  at  com- 
munion. Are  we  then  to  say,  that  of  those,  who  of  all 
mankind  have  most  trusted  the  Blood  of  Jesus,  and 
have  made  most  use  of  it,  the  majority  are  lost?  What 
ground  is  there  in  dogmatic  theology  for  an  assertion  so 
little  to  the  honour  of  our  dearest  Lord  ?  One  drop  is 
more  than  enough  to  redeem  all  the  possible  sins  of  all 
possible  worlds,  and  yet  oceans  of  it  do  not  succeed  in 
redeeming  the  majority  of  the  members  of  His  Church! 
Who  would  hesitate  at  anything  which  the  Church 
taught  him  to  believe,  and  who  would  believe  this  unless 
the  Church  should  teach  it? 

Then  again,  the  action  of  the  sacraments  is  probably 
much  greater  than  we  have  any  notion  of.  We  learn  a 
great  deal  that  is  very  surprising  from  theology,  enough 
to  set  us  gratefully  wondering  at  the  ingenious  excesses 
of  our  Creator's  love.  But  what  we  learn  there  rather 
ehows  us  the  extent  of  our  ignorance  than  furnishes  us 
with  anything  like  a  complete  science.  We  may  fol- 
low, first  the  school  which  teaches  that  the  operation  of 
the  sacraments  is  moral,  then  the  school  which  teache9 
that  it  is  physical,  and  we  are  better  and  holier,  because 
more  loving,  men  for  our  researches.  But  have  they 
not  left  us  at  a  point  beyond  which,  though  we  could 
get  no  further,  we  saw  that  sacramental  grace  was 
advancing  far  beyond  us  with  an  operation  we  could  not 
comprehend,  into  recesses  of  which  mystical  theologians 
speak  in  grandiloquent  words  and  with  abstrusest  terms  ? 
When  we  discuss  the  deep  of  the  soul,  or  the  point  of 
the  spirit,  or  whether  the  character  of  a  sacrament  is  set 
as  a  signet  on  the  soul  or  on  the  faculties  of  the  soul,  we 
are  at  the  end  of  our  mind's  tether,  and  grace  has  shot 


366  THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

miles  ahead,  and  is  working  grandly  out  of  sight.  All 
God's  works  are  greater  when  we  get  to  look  into  them, 
than  they  seemed  at  first.  Especially  must  it  be  so 
with  sucli  supernatural  works  as  His  sacraments.  It  is 
conceivable  that  a  clear  view  of  the  operation  of  the 
sacraments,  both  in  themselves,  and  also  retrospectively 
in  our  own  souls,  may  be  a  not  insignificant  item  in  our 
future  blessedness.  One  good  communion  is  enough, 
they  say,  to  make  a  saint.  Now  think  what  goes  to  the 
making  of  a  saint,  the  numberless  things,  their  inexhaus- 
tible variety,  their  positive  contradictoriness,  their  un- 
likely combinations,  the  intricate  wide-spreading  possi- 
bilities of  their  perseverance  ;  and  what  can  the  axiom 
mean,  except  that,  not  only  the  inward  power  of  a 
sacrament,  but  its  actual  operation,  goes  farther  and 
deeper  than  we  can  follow  it?*  Look  then  at  the  num- 
berless receptions  of  sacraments,  which  there  are  daily 
in  the  Church,  and  can  you  seriously  believe  that  the 
result  of  it  all  is,  that  the  majority  of  catholics  are  not 
saved  ?  0  be  sure  you  are  estimating  far  too  low  the 
glorious  efficacy  of  the  divine  interventions,  the  success- 
ful majesty  of  creative  love  ! 

Our  ignorance  of  the  last  inward  processes  of  death- 
beds leaves  one  of  the  most  spacious  portions  of  our 

*  As  it  is  the  tendency  of  the  modern  mind  to  eliminate  the  supernatural, 
believers  must  be  on  their  guard  against  an  inevitable  temptation,  which 
will  beset  themselves,  to  make  little  of  the  more  supernatural  agencies  in  the 
Church.  Any  departure  from  the  old  language  about  the  wonderworking 
powers  and  peculiar  privileges  of  the  Sacraments  would  be  a  most  suspi- 
cious feature  in  any  modem  theology.  Upon  the  universally  admitted 
principle  of  moral  theology,  Stat  pro  facto,  the  least  that  we  can  say  about 
the  sacraments  is,  that  where  they  have  been  received,  the  probability  is 
always  in  favour  of  their  validity;  and,  if  they  were  valid,  then  the  ri<;ht 
Inward  dispositions  went  along  with  them.  For  the  sacraments  do  not  take 
•he  place  of  a  real  inward  change  of  heart,  or  do  instead  of  it.  It  is  their 
office  to  produce  it  by  their  marvellous  reinforcements  of  grace. 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.      3G7 

lives  inaccessible  to  our  notice.     Life  is  not  counted 
only  bj  material  time.     The  world,  and  all  its  sights 
and  sounds,  too  often  leave  little  room  for  God  in  the 
hearts  of  men.     But  the  hour  of  death  is  very  spacious. 
It  gives  God  room.     It  turns  minutes  into  years.     It 
redoubles  and  redoubles  the  swift  processes  of  the  mind 
just  on  the  eve  of  its  ejection  from  the  body.     It  is  an 
hour  of  truth,  and  an  hour  of  truth  is  longer  than  a  cen- 
tury of  falsehood.     Heaven  draws  near  to  it,  to  help  as 
well  as  to  behold.     It  is   God's  last  chance  with  Ilia 
creature,  and  divine  wisdom  must  know  well  how  to  use 
its  chances.     A  man  is  freed  from  many  laws,  when 
time  and  space  are  visibly  melting  away  in  the  white 
light  of  eternity,  or  rather  he  himself  is  being  brought 
under  wider  and  larger  laws.     He  can  live  many  lives 
within  the  compass  of  his  agony.     We  know  very  little 
of  what  goes  on  then.     The  thick  curtains  of  the  glazed 
eye,  of  the  expressionless  or  only  pain-furrowed  face, 
and  of  the  inarticulate  voice,  are  drawn  round  the  last 
earthly  audience  between  the  Creator  and  the  creature. 
But  observation  and  psychology  combine  to  teach  us 
that  much  does  go  on,  and  of  a  far  more  intelligent 
character,  than  we  should  otherwise  conceive.    "  Really, 
according   to   my   observations,"   says    Sir    Benjamin 
Brodie,*  "  the  mere  act  of  dying  is  seldom,  in  any  sense 
of  the  word,  a  very  painful  process.     It  is  true  that 
some  persons  die  in  a  state  of  bodily  torture,  as  in  cases 
of  tetanus  ;  that  the  drunkard,  dying  of  delirium  tremens, 
is  haunted  by  terrific  visions ;  and  that  the  victim  of 
that  most  horrible  of  all  diseases,  hydrophobia,  in  addi- 
tion to  those  peculiar  bodily  sufferings  from  which  the 
disease  has  derived  its  name,  may  be  in  a  state  of  tenor 
from  the  supposed  .presence  of  frightful  objects— which 

•  radiological  Enquiries,  p.  130. 


368      THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

are  presented  to  hira  as  realities,  even  to  the  last.  But 
these  and  some  other  instances  which  I  might  adduce 
axe  exceptions  to  the  general  rule,  which  is,  that  both 
mental  and  bodily  sufferings  terminate  long  before  the 
scene  is  finally  closed.  Then,  as  to  the  actual  fear  of 
death  ;  it  seems  to  me  that  the  Author  of  our  existence, 
for  the  most  part,  gives  it  to  us  when  it  is  intended 
that  we  should  live,  and  takes  it  away  from  us  when  it 
is  intended  that  "we  should  die.  Those  who  have  been 
long  tormented  by  bodily  pain  are  generally  as  anxious 
to  die  as  they  ever  were  to  live.  So  it  often  is  with 
those  whose  life  has  been  protracted  to  an  extreme  old 
age,  beyond  the  usual  period  of  mortality,  even  when 
they  labour  under  no  actual  disease.  It  is  not  very 
common  for  any  one  to  die  merely  of  old  age  ;— 

*  Like  ripe  fruit  to  drop 
Into  his  mother's  lap.* 

But  I  have  known  this  to  happen  ;  and  a  happy  conclu- 
sion it  has  seemed  to  be  of  worldly  cares  and  jojs.  It 
was  like  falling  to  sleep,  never  tp  awake  again  in  this 
state  of  existence.  Some  die  retaining  all  their  facul- 
ties, and  quite  aware  that  their  dissolution  is  at  hand. 
Others  offer  no  signs  of  recognition  of  external  objects, 
so  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  form  any  positive 
opinion  whether  they  do  or  do  not  retain  their  sensibi- 
lity ;  and  others  again,  as  I  have  already  stated,  who 
appear  to  be  insensible  and  unconscious,  when  carefully 
watched,  are  found  not  to  be  so  in  reality ;  but  they 
die  contentedly.  I  have  myself  never  known  but  two 
instances  in  which,  in  the  act  of  dying,  there  were 
manifest  indications  of  the  fear  of  death." 

In  the„  life  of  Condren  there  is  a  very  remarkable 
passage  urging  on  us  the  duty  of  thanksgiving  to  God 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.      CC9 

for  the  graces  He  bestows  on  the  dying,  inasmuch  as 
11  His   compassion   for  them   is  inexplicable,  and   He 
seems  to  distribute  His  favours  to  them  all  the  more 
■willingly,  because  they  are  hardly  now  in  danger  of 
profaning  them. *     Beautiful  thought !     0  how  much  of 
the  beauty  of  God's  love  is  gathered  round  the  dying 
bed,  how  much  more  than  we  can  see,  how  much  more 
than  we  believe  !     We  grant  that  it  is  unknown  ground  ; 
but  because  mercy  is  so  much  needed  then,  because 
mercy  has  had  so  many  antecedents  with  the  soul,  be- 
cause it  is  God's  will  it  should  be  saved,  and  finally 
because  God  is  such  a  God  as  we  know  Him  well  to  be, 
we  boldly  claim  all  that  unknown  land  of  catholic  death- 
beds for  the  simple  sovereignty  of  the  divine  compassion. 
That  hour  may  explain  many  inexplicable  salvations. 
The   gloomiest   mind   must  admit,  that  it  may  have 
shrouded  in  it  endless   possibilities  of  salvation ;  and 
with  such  a  God  at  such  an  hour  the  possibilities  grow 
miraculously  into  probabilities,  and  forthwith  disappear 
in  those  sweet  sudden  certainties  with  which  the  dying 
child    of    Jesus   has   fallen   asleep   upon  its   Father  s 
bosom.* 

*  I  would  earnestly  beg  of  tbe  reader  to  turn  back  here,  and  read  again 
our  Blessed  Lord's  own  revelation  to  S.  Gertrude  about  deathbed  mercies, 
page  275,  In  the  consideration  of  this  matter  there  are  two  things  to  be 
observed,  and  also  to  be  kept  studiously  apart:  — opinions  based  on  theo- 
logical teaching,  and  opinions  gathered  from  the  observation  of  mankind 
and  the  experience  of  life.  The  last  chapter,  on  the  Easiness  of  Salvation, 
was  theology,  the  present  chapter  on  the  number  of  the  saved  rests  ma. niy 
on  inferences  from  the  character  of  God,  and  on  a  hopeful  view  of  human 
conduct.  All  consistent  views  of  God's  dealings  with  His  creatures  must 
rest  the  fixed  point  of  the  compass  either  on  His  revealed  character  or  oa 
our  own  personal  observation  of  mankind.  From  onr  ignorance,  neither 
will  give  us  certain  results.  But,  on  the  one  hand,  the  inferences  drawn 
from  the  revealed  character  of  God  are  decidodly  in  favour  of  the  mild 
view  of  the  number  of  the  saved,  while,  on  the  other,  personal  observation 
of  mankind  is  a  most  uncertain  affair,  can  only  produce  very  precarious 
rciults,  and  is  by  UO  means  so  decidedly  on  tho  rigorous  side  as  the  re- 


370  THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

When  we  see  a  man  sinning,  we  see  his  sin,  but  we 
can  seldom  see  the  excuses  of  his  sin.  This  is  a  very 
important  consideration  in  the  present  discussion,  and 
has  already  been  partially  adverted  to.  The  depths  of 
invincible  ignorance  may  underlie  no  inconsiderable 
region  of  a  man's  moral  nature,  and  each  individual 
character  has  an  invincible  ignorance  belonging  to  itself. 
It  is  a  thing  we  cannot  possibly  presume  upon  for  our- 
selves, because  a  suspicion  destroys  it:  but  we  may  put 
much  1o  its  account  in  our  neighbour's  favour.  Again, 
the  violence  of  the  temptation  is  invisible  ;  and  even  if 
we  saw  it,  we  could  not  see  the  peculiar  oppressiveness 
of  it  to  another's  heart,  or  its  almost  irresistible  tyranny 
because  of  previous  habits.  Yet  surely  there  are  many 
cases  in  which  the  vehemence  of  the  temptation  is  a 

vealed  character  of  God  is  on  the  milder  side.  We  know  more  of  God 
than  we  know  of  men,  and  what  we  know  of  Him  we  know  more  surely 
than  what  we  know  of  them.  It  is  the  very  object  of  this  chapter  to  prova 
that. 

With  regard  to  the  hopeful  view  of  human  conduct,  my  own  observation 
in  the  priesthood,  and  that  of  others  eminent  in  age  and  of  wide  experience, 
whom  I  have  consulted,  is  that  the  great  majority  of  catholics  lead  lives  of 
more  or  less  struggle.  It  is  too  often  little  enough.  Yet  missions,  general 
confessions,  and  the  like,  reveal  for  the  most,  part  this  feature  of  struggle. 
Now  this  is  a  most  important  feature.  Combattasi  pure,  che  qui  sta  il  tut  to, 
says  Scupoli.  (But  read  all  his  chapter  6.)  The  grace  of  a  good  deathbed, 
maintained  in  the  text  to  be  so  common,  is  not  the  ordinary  conclusion  of  a 
probation  spent  in  life-long  neglect  of  God.  or  in  obdurate  sin,  but  the  final 
giving  of  the  victory  by  a  great  and  decisive  mercy  to  the  side  in  a  struggle, 
which  hitherto  had  been  dubious  and  unsatisfactory.  Meanwhile  no  One  can 
deny  that  a  good  death  as  the  end  of  a  bad  life  is  both  a  theological  possi- 
bility, and  an  occasional  mercy.  But  such  are  not  the  deathbed  graces  which. 
I  speak  of  as  being  common.  Still,  those  other  marvellous  deathbed  conver- 
sions, though  they  are  rare  phenomena,  must  necessarily  be  taken  into  the 
account,  when  we  are  occupied  in  fathoming  the  incredible  depths  of  God's 
love.  It  has  become  proverbial  that  a  principle  is  best  tested  by  an  extreme 
case.  Tims  even  of  sinners,  as  well  as  of  martyrs,  does  God's  love  at  times 
m  ike  thtrse  words  true,  true  it  may  be  even  to  the  passing  over  of  Purga- 
tory, 

Mortis  saerse  compt.ndio 

Vitara  beatani  possideut. 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.  071 

mitigating  circumstance  in  punishment,  even  if  it  be  not 
an  actual  plea  of  mercy.  We  must  also  have  a  thorough 
acquaintance  with  a  man's  peculiar  turn  of  mind,  the 
bent  of  his  disposition,  the  circumstances  of  his  past 
life,  and,  most  of  all,  his  early  education,  before  we  are 
at  all  in  a  condition  to  form  an  estimate  of  what  his 
guilt  is  in  the  sight  of  God.*  Also  men  often  fall,  when 
they  are  in  a  good  state,  from  a  momentary  self-trust, 
or  a  sudden  assault  of  Satan,  God  permitting  it  for  their 
greater  good  and  more  entire  humility;  and  then  a 
man's  sin  is  an  exceptional  case,  aud  we  cannot  argue 
from  it  to  his  habitual  state.  All  these  considerations, 
and  many  more  which  might  be  adduced,  very  much 
detract  from  the  value  of  our  observations  on  the  sins  of 
catholics,  as  proofs  that  by  far  the  greater  number  of 
tliem  are  not  ultimately  saved. 

This  leads  us  to  a  further  consideration.  It  can 
hardly  be  denied  that  men's  actions  are  often  worse 
than  their  hearts,  even  when  they  proceed  from  the 
heart;  and  they  have  often  less  heart  in  them  than 
they  seem  to  have.  For  instance,  a  man  commits  a 
sin  in  a  sudden  outburst  of  passion;  that  passion  may 
have  felt  some  peculiar  sting  in  the  provocation  which 
another  would  not  feel,  and  it  may  have  fallen  upon 
him  when  he  was  physically  agitated  or  when  his  nerves 

*  Lacordaire  says  beautifully  of  the  sinner  as  be  is  in  the  sight  of  God,— 
Dicu  y  reconu&it  encore  6a  main.  Comrr.e  une  statue  mutile'e  9ort  de  li 
t*rre  oil  les  *iec!es  l'avaient  enfouie,  ainsi  lame  de^radp'o  par  le  pe"clw'>  appa- 
rait  aux  regards  de  son  pere;  e'est  un  marbre  deshonore,  maw  oil  re 
encore  la  vie,  et  auqud  l'artiste  supreme  peut  rendre  sa  premiere  beautg. 
11  y  travaille  avee  ardeur  ;  il  aime  cu  de"bris ;  il  y  frappc  des  coups  qui tfrn- 
euvent  ion  espe'rance  et  attendrissent  ses  regrets.  Ce  n'est  qua  la  mort  qua 
le  mal  perscveYant  prend  une  consistanee  a  I'epreuve  de  I'amour  divin,  et 
que  Dieu  le  voit  comme  un  impardonnablo  ennenii.  Jusqueiu,  il  appartieat 
encore  a  l'arcliitecture  du  bien;  il  est  une  pierre  espeYable  de  la  sainte  cite', 
et  peut-ttra  y  untrera-t-il  en  un  lien  magrufiqae,  qui  otuunera  1'iunoceiica 
sans  ia  (Mcourager.    L'j/iferencet  de  1851 . 


872  THE  GIIEAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

■were  unstrung.  For  all  this,  the  sin  may  remain  a  sin, 
and  yet  be  no  fair  index  of  the  sinner's  heart.  Or, 
again,  men  are  propelled  into  sin  not  unfrequently  by 
false  shame,  by  human  respect,  by  bad  company  ;  and 
a  man's  heart  may  be  far  better  all  the  while  than 
its  outward  actions  testify.  Many  a  man  looks  to  his 
neighbours  a  very  monster  of  depravity,  while  the 
priest,  who  heard  his  general  confession,  has  been 
almost  touched  to  tears  by  the  spots  of  green  verdure, 
the  almost  feminine  sensibilities,  the  refined  kindnesses, 
but  above  all  by  the  moral  shyness,  the  ground  of  so 
many  ^virtues,  which  he  found  in  that  great  rough 
nature.  Are  we  not  learning  every  day  to  be  less 
surprised  at  finding  how  so  very  much  good  can  dwell 
with  so  very  much  evil?  Then,  again,  many  have 
so  many  odd  crossings  in  their  minds  which  tell  upon 
their  motives,  and  hamper  the  free  action  of  their 
moral  sense  ;  and  thus  it  is  that  cruelty  in  war,  agra- 
rian murders,  and  the  like,  are  not  on  the  whole  such 
conclusive  proofs  of  a  depraved  heart  as  they  are  com- 
monly taken  to  be.  Much  crime  lies  at  the  door  of 
a  warped  mind;  and  how  much  of  that  crime  is  sin 
can  be  known  to  God  alone.  The  heart  is  the  jewel 
which  lie  covets  for  His  crown,  and  if  the  heart  which 
we  do  not  see  is  better  than  the  actions  that  we  see, 
God  be  praised!  for  then  the  world  is  a  trifle  less 
dismal  than  it  seems. 

It  was  perhaps  these  and  similar  considerations  of 
human  charity,  almost  infinitely  magnified  by  His 
Sacred  Heart  which  made  Jesus,  when  on  earth,  such  a 
lover  of  sinners.  We  know  well  that  His  predilection 
was  for  them,  He  came  to  seek  and  to  save  what  was 
lost,  and  the  more  lost  a  soul  was,  the  more  especially 
He  came  to  seek  it  and  to  save  it.   He  seemed  to  prefes 


The  great  mass  of  believers.  373 

the  society  of  sinners  to  any  other ;  and  all-holy  as  Ho 
was,  it  is  wonderful  how  He  contrived  at  once  to  exhibit 
His  holiness  and  also  to  put  sinners  into  so  interesting 
a  light :  and  He,  which  is  much  to  be  remembered, 
is  the  Jiulgo  at  last.  Thoso  sinners,  who  camo  near 
Him  in  the  Gospel  and  had  intercourse  with  Him,  seem 
to  be  almost  His  chosen  souls.  There  is  a  poetry 
thrown  around  their  memories,  even  in  the  case  of  the 
poor  young  man  who  did  not  follow  Him,  which  is 
nothing  else  but  the  lu9tre  of  the  Saviour's  love.  So 
is  it  always  with  the  saints  of  Jesus.  They  are  charac- 
terized by  a  hopeful  view  of  sinners.*  They  have  a 
positive  devotion  to  them,  as  our  Lord  had.  The  very 
power  of  the  religious  communities,  which  have  to  deal 
with  the  reformation  of  sinners,  consists  at  once  in 
their  tender  love  of  them  and  their  supernatural  re- 
spect for  them.  Without  this  last  quality  even  tho 
charity  of  the  spouses  of  Christ  will  be  but  intermit- 
tent, and  lose  the  perfection  of  its  beauty,  the  unifor- 
mity of  its  sweetness,  and  the  power  from  God  to 
accomplish  and  bring  to  a  happy  persevering  issue 
the  glorious  work  of  conversion  in  the  soul.  In  the 
place  of  the  steadiness  of  grace,  their  works  of  mercy 
will  have  all  the  characteristics  of  capricious  nature. 
Truly  it  is  a  Christlike  thing  to  love  sinners.  But  is  not 
our  love  of  them  a  piteous  horror  rather  than  a  true  love, 
if  our  view  of  them  is  to  be  so  depressing  and  over- 
clouded, that  we  are  to  believe  that  the  greater  number 
even  of  catholics  are  not  to  be  saved  ?  Does  not  this 
peculiar  tenderness,  this  almost  devotion  of  our  Blessed 

•  Great  strew  should  be  laid  on  the  almost  invariable  characteristic  of 
tho  saints,  that  they  took  a  hopeful  view  of  human  conduct;  tor  tha 
6\ints  are  precisely  men  whose  dispositions  approach  to  Uie  dispositions 
of  Gud. 


.374  THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

Lord,  point  to  a  far  more  cheering  view?  Pray,  said 
the  Carmelite  prioress  of  Beaune  to  Margaret  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament,  pray  for  this  soul,  though  I  cannot 
hope  for  its  conversion.  0  Mother,  replied  Margaret, 
wherefore  doubt  the  goodness  of  our  God  ?  Is  not  this 
to  do  Him  a  dishonour  ?  Who  has  ever  invoked  the 
Holy  Child  Jesus  -without  being  heard  ?  Now  let  us 
go  and  implore  of  Him  the  grace  which  you  desire,  and 
three  days  shall  not  pass  before  your  wishes  shall  be 
gratified. 

The  saints  look  at  sinners  as  saints  themselves  in 
possibility.  Their  hopefulness  is  the  secret  of  their 
charity.  Their  humility  also,  which  gives  them  a  clear 
view  of  the  excess  of  God's  grace  over  the  amount  of 
their  own  correspondence,  makes  them  slow  to  believe 
that  others,  even  with  less  grace,  will  not  surpass 
their  attainments.  Thus  they  come  to  believe,  what 
the  experience  of  those  versed  in  the  affairs  of  souls 
abundantly  establishes,  that  conversion  is  one  of  the 
most  common  phenomena  of  grace.  It  is  the  sort  of 
thing  to  be  expected  of  grace,  the  ordinary  occurrence 
which  comes  as  a  matter  of  course,  just  as  the  sun 
warms,  or  the  frost  chills,  or  the  water  wets  us,  or  the 
fire  burns  us.  Now  we  have  already  seeni;he  immense 
abundance  of  grace,  with  which  heaven  inundates  the 
earth,  and  if  conversion  is  quite  an  ordinary  occurrence 
with  it,  and  sinners  alone  can  strictly  speaking  be  the 
subjects  of  conversion,  it  follows  that  the  great  mass 
of  apparently  unworthy  catholics  is  the  chosen  theatre 
of  one  of  the  strongest  as  well  as  the  commonest  of  the 
operations  of  grace.  Thus  it  is  that  apostolic  zeal, 
with  its  enlightened  love,  looks  at  sinners  as  the  mate- 
rials for  the  future  triumphs  of  Jesus,  as  the  harvest 
jet  ungarnered  of  His  passion  and  His  Cross.    Bad 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.     07  J 

catholic?,  those  who  appear  bad  to  us,  are  but  a  pro- 
portion of  all  catholics,  and  if  redeeming  grace  has  yet 
got  to  invade  that  proportion,  and  according  to  all  its 
laws  must  triumphantly  invade  it,  we  can  hardly  think 
otherwise  than  that  the  majority  of  catholics  will  be 
Paved.  If  we  put  all  our  data  together,  conversion  can 
hardly  be  common  in  the  Church,  unless  salvation  is 
common  too. 

There  is  another  point,  which  has  already  been  ad- 
verted to,  but  which  must  not  be  omitted  in  the  pre- 
sent enumeration.  "When  men  look  at  a  country,  or  a 
neighbourhood,  or  a  town,  and  pass  a  judgment  on  its 
religious  condition,  not  only  must  they  necessarily 
have  insufficient  data,  but  they  are  very  liable  to  fall 
into  an  inaccuracy  which  seriously  affects  the  value  of 
their  observations.  They  do  not  distinguish  between 
the  sinfulness  of  sin  and  the  deformity  of  sin,  which 
last  spreads  out  and  covers  a  greater  extent  of  ground 
than  the  guilt,  infecting  the  manners,  tainting  the 
whole  tone  and  atmosphere,  and  altogether  making  a 
much  greater  show  than  the  real  sin.  Much  that  is 
morally  unlovely  is  not  sin,  certainly  not  mortal  sin. 
And  yet  it  catches  the  eye,  and  offends  our  moral  sense, 
and  is  extremely  odious  in  the  sight  of  religion.  It 
is  of  a  truth  an  evidence  of  the  existence  of  sin,  but 
by  no  means  a  measure  of  its  quantity.  Very  often  a 
newly  converted  man  is  almost  as  disagreeable  and 
repulsive  as  he  was  when  in  his  sins.  His  moral  ap- 
pearance is  not  improved  all  at  once.  The  mellowing, 
Eoftening,  beautifying  powers  of  grace  are  long  in  then 
operation,  and  follow  with  slow  steps  the  sharp  decisive 
movements  which  effect  conversion  at  the  first.  As  it 
is  absurd  for  protestants  to  measure  the  truth  of  the 
religions  of  two  countries  by  the  success  of  conquest, 


076      THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

the  perfection  of  the  monetary  system,  the  extension  of 
commerce,  or  scientific  improvements  in  agriculture,* 
so  is  it  equally  a  mistake  to  decide  on  the  religiousness 
of  a  population  by  the  offensive  prominences  of  national 
character,  or  by  the  reigning  foibles  and  unworthinessea 
of  a  population,  or  even  by  a  low  standard  of  moral 
integrity  in  some  one  or  other  department,  peculiar  to 
the  country,  place,  or  time.  In  judging  of  individuals 
it  is  still  more  important  to  distinguish  between  moral 
unloveliness  and  downright  sin.  Goodness  tends  to  be 
graceful;  but  in  this  life  there  are  always  to  each  man 
a  thousand  causes  which  hinder  its  development. 

The  extreme  severity  of  the  punishments  of  purgatory 
is  another  consideration  which  leads  the  mind  to  con- 
template the  immense  multitude  of  the  saved,  and  of 
those  saved   with   very  imperfect  dispositions,  as  the 
only  solution  of  these  chastisements.    Purgatory  goes  as 
near  to  the  unriddling  the  riddle  of  the  world,  as  any 
one  ordinance  of  God  which  can  be  named.     Difficulties 
are  perpetually  drifting  that  way  to  find  their  explanation ; 
and  the  saints  of  God  have  turned  so  full  a  light  upon 
those  fields  of  fire,  that  the  geography  of  them  seems 
almost  as  familiar  to  us  as  the  well-known  features  of 
the  surface  of  the  earth.     The  charitable  practices  of 
catholic  devotion  lead  us  to  spend  so  much  of  our  day 
amid  the  patience  of  that  beautiful  suffering,  that  it  has 
become  to  us  like  the  wards  of  a  favourite  hospital  with 
its  familiar  faces  brightening  at  the  welcome  words  of 
consolation.     It  is  the  same  fire  as  hell.     That  in  itself 
is  a  terrible  reflection.    The  revelations  of  the  saints 


•  Yet  the  more  thoughtful  protestant  writers  are  beginning  to  see  now, 
what  political  geography  might  have  taught  them  before,  that  these  develop- 
ments of  material  grandeur  are  due  to  the  amount  of  popular  liberty 
rather  than  to  the  dominance  of  any  religious  opiuions. 


THE  GREAT  MAS9  OP  BELIEVERS.  877 

depict  the  tortures  of  it  as  fearful  in  the  extreme.  There 
is  a  consent  of  them,  as  to  the  immense  lengths  of  time 
which  souls  average  under  that  punishment,  a  consent 
fully  bearing  out  the  practice  of  the  Church  in  anniver- 
saries and  foundations  for  masses  for  ever.     The  very 
slightest   infidelities  to  grace  seem  to  be  visted  there 
with  the  acutest  sufferings.     God  Himself  has  bidden 
His  saints  to  honour  with  chaste  fear  and  exceeding 
awe  the  rigours  of  His  justice,  and  the  requirements  of 
His   purity,  in  that  land  of  bitter  long  delay.     Now 
does  it  come  natural  to  us  to  look  at  all  this  system, 
this  terrible  eighth  sacrament  of  fire,  which  is  the  home 
of  those  souls  whom  the  seven  real  sacraments  of  earth 
have  not  been  allowed  to  purify  completely,  does  it  come 
natural   to   us   to   look   at   it   all   as  simply  a  penal 
machinery  invented  for  the  saints  and  those  most  like 
the  saints,  to  cut  away  with  its  vindictive  sharpness  the 
little  imperfections  which  come  of  human  frailty?    That 
it   should   fulfil    this   office  is  most  intelligible,  most 
accordant  with  God's  perfections,  and  most  consolatory 
to  souls  themselves.     But  does  not  the  view  at  once 
recommend  itself  to  us  that  it  was  an  invention  of  God 
to  multiply  the  fruit  of  our  Saviour's  Passion,  that  it 
was  intended  for  the  great   multitudes  who  should  die 
in   charity  with    God,  but  in   imperfect   charity,  and 
therefore  that  it  is  as  it  were  the  continuance  of  deathbed 
mercies  beyond  the  grave,  and  that,  as  such,  it  throws 
no  uncertain  light  on  the  cheering  supposition  that  most 
catholics  are  saved,  especially  of  the  poor  who  sorrow 
and  suffer  here? 

Mention  has  been  made  in  previous  chapters  of  God's 
unaccountable  contentment  with  so  little,  as  requisite 
for  salvation.  Of  course  purgatory  goes  some  way 
towards  accounting  for  it,  but  very  far  from  the  wLula 


378'  THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

way.  Purgatory  seems  too  good  for  ungenerous  souls, 
and  yet  they  are  crowding  into  it  by  thousands,  and 
become  beautiful  amid  its  flames.  The  merits  and 
satisfactions  of  our  dearest  Lord  seem  our  only  refuse, 
when  we  see  how  low  it  has  pleased  God  to  put  the 
terms  of  our  redemption.  The  charity  of  Jesus  covers 
the  multitude  of  the  sins  of  His  people.  God  sees  the 
world  through  Him,  not  simply  by  a  fiction  imputing  to 
us  the  holiness  that  is  our  Lord's,  but,  for  His  sake  and 
by  the  efficacy  of  His  Blood,  actually  ennobling  our 
unworthiness,  and  giving  a  real  greatness  to  our  little- 
ness, and  a  solid  value  to  the  merest  intentions  of  our 
love.  It  is  the  daily  delight  of  His  justice  to  be  limited 
in  the  operations  of  its  righteous  anger  by  the  adorable 
Sacrifice  of  the  Mass ;  and  the  glory  of  Jesus  is  the 
grand  fundamental  law  of  all  creation.  Yet  even  so, 
God's  contentment  with  so  little  is  an  inscrutable  mercy, 
one  of  those  bright  lights  that  are  dark  because  they 
are  so  bright,  and  which  are  rising  up  perpetually  from 
the  abysses  of  creative  love.  Who  shall  tell  the  thousands 
of  souls  in  heaven  at  this  hour,  whom,  almost  to  their 
own  surprise,  that  marvellous  contentment  has  exalted 
there? 

Are  any  two  angels  exactly  in  the  same  degree  of 
glory  ?  Theologians  say  that  the  graces  of  each  radiant 
spirit  are  unlike.  Perhaps  then  their  glories  are  un- 
equal also,  and  even  where  not  unequal,  at  least  unlike. 
If  so,  what  innumerable  degrees  of  bliss  there  must  be 
in  the  angelic  hierarchies!  The  saints  we  know  are 
ranged  in  countless  ranks.  We  are  not  told  that  those 
who  are  in  the  same  rank  have  all  an  equal  vision.  It 
is  of  faith  that  the  rewards  of  heaven  differ  in  decree. 
It  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  parables  of  the  talents 
and  the    cities.      In  my  Father's    house  are  many 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.      C7i) 

man?ions,  said  our  Lord.  Star  differeth  from  star  in 
glory,  is  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul.  Now  there  can  be 
no  exaggeration  in  supposing  that  there  are  at  least  as 
many  different  degrees  of  happiness  in  heaven  as  there 
are  degrees  of  happiness  on  earth.  We  know  that  there 
are  as  many  different  degrees  of  glory  hereafter,  as  there 
are  different  degrees  of  grace  here  ;  and  as  far  as  we  can 
read  the  phenomena  of  grace,  it  would  really  seem  as 
if  those  differences  were  as  numerous  as  the  individual 
Hearts  in  which  it  dwells.  This  would  admit  of  an 
immense  variety  of  scales  of  goodness  upon  earth,  the 
very  lowest  of  which  should  reach  heaven.  And  would 
it  not  be  in  accordance  with  what  we  know  of  the  works 
of  God,  if  heaven  stooped  almost  down  to  earth,  and 
wellnigh  blended  with  it,  only,  which  is  truly  difference 
enough,  that  the  lowest  there  would  have  God's  clear 
light  full  upon  him,  and  therefore  be  bathed  in  joys 
which  eye  has  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  heart  of 
man  conceived  ?  This  view  would  swiftly  reach,  and 
that  by  no  circuitous  route,  the  sweet  conclusion  for 
which  we  plead,  that  the  great  majority  of  catholics  are 
saved. 

Hell  teaches  the  same  comfortable  doctrine  as  heaven, 
although  in  a  rougher  strain.  Finite  evil  is  almost  in- 
finitely punished,  limited  sin  almost  inimitably  tor- 
mented. One  mortal  sin  is  chastised  eternally.  There 
may  be  many  in  hell  who  have  committed  a  less  amount 
of  sin  than  many  who  are  in  heaven,  only  they  would 
not  lay  hold  of  the  Cross  of  Christ,  and  do  penance,  and 
have  easy  absolution.  There  is  no  life  of  self  denying 
virtue,  however  long  and  however  laborious,  but  if  it 
ends  in  impenitence  and  mortal  sin,  must  be  continued 
among  the  unending  pains  of  hell.  One  mortal  sin, 
and  straightway  a  death  without  contrition,  and  ever- 


380     THE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS. 

lasting  despair  alone  remains.  Now  will  evil  be  mora 
punished  than  good  is  rewarded?  Will  they  even  be 
on  equal  terms  ?  Theology  teaches  that  the  chastise- 
ments of  hell  are  for  the  sake  of  Christ  far  less  than  the 
wretched  sufferers  deserve.  There  is  mercy  even  there, 
whence  hope  has  long  since  fled,  compassion  even  there 
where  its  tenderness  seems  so  wholly  out  of  place,  and 
its  forbearance  thankless  and  unavailing  Hell  is  less 
than  sin  deserves.  Then  is  there  no  corner  of  creation 
where  the  divine  justice  enjoys  all  its  rights?  At  least 
it  is  not  in  hell ;  for  hell  is  less  than  sin  deserves.  O 
beautiful  ubiquity  of  mercy  !  The  Gospel  nowhere  tells 
us  that  sinners  shall  be  punished  up  to  the  plenitude  of 
their  demerits  ;  but  it  does  tell  us  about  the  reward  of 
virtue,  that  it  shall  be  "  good  measure,  and  pressed 
down,  and  shaken  together,  and  running  over.''  You 
see  it  is  in  heaven  only  that  justice  shall  enjoy  its  royal- 
ties! Shall  not  then  God's  rewarding  of  good  be  in 
all  respects  far  beyond,  in  fulness  and  completeness,  His 
punishment  of  evil?  Shall  not  a  little  good,  a  very 
little  good,  be  much  rewarded?  And  is  not  the  number 
who  are  rewarded  a  chief  feature  in  the  magnificence  of 
the  reward?  Surely  not  only  w;ll  heaven  be  un- 
speakably beyond  our  deservings,  but  many  will  go  there, 
whom  only  the  generosity  of  divine  love  and  the  deter- 
mination of  persisting  grace  could  have  made  deserving. 
These  are  things  which  we  cannot  know,  and  they  are 
not  put  forward  as  amounting  to  arguments;  but  there 
seems  something  easy  in  the  process  by  which  the  very 
existence  and  extremity  of  hell  leads  to  the  conclusion 
that  most  catholics  are  saved. 

The  providence  of  God  in  the  lives  of  men  is  to  each 
one  in  particular  a  private  revelation  of  His  love.  The 
biography  of  every  one  of  us  is  to  ourselves  as  luminously 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.     381 

supernatural,  as  palpably  full  of  divine  interferences,  as 
if  it  were  a  page  out  of  the  Old  Testament  history. 
Moreover    all    that    is  providential   is   also   merciful. 
The  iuterferences  are  all  on  the  6ide  of  love.     Stern- 
looking  accidents,  when  they  turn  their  full  face  to  us, 
beam  with  the  look  of  love.     Even  our  very  faults  are 
so  strangely  over-ruled,  that  mercy  can  draw  materials 
for  its  blessings  even  out  of  them.     It  is  true  we  may 
easily  delude  ourselves.     But  the  natural  tendency  to 
find  a  meaning  in  what  happens  to  ourselves,  and  to 
exaggerate  its  significance,  cannot  altogether,  or  even 
nearly,  account  ior  the  providential  aspect  which  our 
past  lives  present  to  us,  when  we  reflect  upon  them  in 
the  laith  and  fear  of  God.     Our  merciful  Creator  seems 
to  have  led  us  very  gently,  as  knowing  how  weak  and 
ill  we  are  ;  yet  He  has  led  us  plainly  towards  Himself. 
If  it  is  not  speaking  of  Him  too  familiarly,  He  seems  to 
have  done  everything  just  at  the  right  time,  and  in  the 
right  place,  to  have  put  nothing  before  us  till  we  were 
ready  lor  it  and  could  make  the  most  of  it,  to  have  timed 
His  grace  and  apportioned  it,  so  that  we  might  have 
as  little  as  possible  the  guilt  of  resisting  grace,  to  have 
weighed  even  our  crosses  before  He  laid  them  upon  us, 
f  nd  to  have  waited  an  auspicious  moment  each  time  He 
would  persuade  us  to  something  fresh.     He  has  com- 
bined  events   with   the   most   consummate   skill,   and 
brought  out  the  most  wonderful  results,  and  they  have 
always  been  in  our  favour.     There  are  difficulties  and 
seeming  exceptions  to  the  ordinary  course  of  this  genial 
providence.     But  it  is  only  at   first  sight   that   they 
perplex  us.     These  very  exceptions  on  closer  investiga- 
tion, or  longer  experience,  turn  out  to  be  the  most  strik- 
ing examples   of  the  general  rule  of  benevolence  and 
love.     If  we  ask  each  man  separately,  this  is  what  he 


3S2  THE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS. 

Trill  tell  us.  We  have  all  of  us  had  this  private  revela- 
tion. But  are  not  God's  works  for  the  most  part 
remarkable  for  their  efficacy?  Do  not  all  these  secret 
biographies  of  men,  with  their  beautiful  disclosures  of 
His  assiduous  ministering  love,  bear  upon  this  question 
of  salvation  ?  Has  He  so  waited  upon  each  of  us,  that 
we  might  at  any  time  have  mistaken  Him  for  our  Guar- 
dian Angel,  instead  of  our  God,  and  yet  is  not  His 
solicitude  in  far  the  greater  number  of  cases  to  have  the 
one  issue  which  His  glory  so  earnestly  desires  ?  God 
is  infinitely  just,  and  He  executes  His  justice  upon  the 
sons  of  men.  But  Scripture  does  not  put  His  vindictive 
justice  forward  as  coming  in  floods  and  inundations  and 
unheard-of  wonders,  as  His  mercy  does,  but  rather  as  a 
reserve,  an  interference,  an  exceptional  visitation,  and 
as  taking  the  room  left  for  it  in  the  world  by  previously 
rejected  mercy. 

Let  us  dwell  on  one  feature  of  His  providence,  the 
Way  in  which  He  vouchsafes  to  time  things.  Think 
of  the  hour  of  death,  of  its  surpassing  importance,  of 
its  thrilling  risks,  of  all  those  inward  processes  of 
which  we  have  already  spoken.  Now  may  we  not 
conclude,  op  at  least  with  reasonable  hope  infer,  that 
to  most,  if  not  to  all,  men,  the  hour  of  their  death  is 
seasonably  timed  ?  They  die  when  it  is  best  for  them 
to  die.  There  are  some  dangers  in  advance  which  they 
avoid  by  dying  then.  They  die  when  they  are  in  the 
l>est  state  for  dying.  Even  the  deaths  of  those  who  are 
lost  may  be  mercifully  timed.  When  men  die  young, 
t  is  perhaps  because  they  would  have  lost  themselves  if 
Ihey  had  lived  to  be  old.  When  men  die  late,  it  is 
perhaps  to  give  them  time  to  correspond  to  grace,  to  do 
penance  for  the  past,  and  especially  that  they  may  get 
rid  of  some  evil  habit  which  would  else  be  their  per- 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.  B83 

dition,  and  which  the  mere  infirmity  of  age  will  help 
them  to  abandon.  When  men  die  just  as  they  are 
coming  into  the  possession  of  riches,  or  at  the  outset  of 
a  smiliug  career  of  laudable  ambition,  it  is  perhaps 
because  God  sees  in  their  natural  character,  or  in  their 
personal  circumstances  some  seeds  of  future  evil,  and  so 
He  takes  them  while  all  that  evil  lies  innocently  unde- 
veloped in  their  souls.  Who  can  think  of  what  death  is, 
and  yet  doubt  that  God's  wisdom  and  His  love  are 
brought  to  bear  with  inexpressible  sweetness  both  on 
its  manner  and  its  time?  If  God  were  pleased  to  tell 
us,  we  should  probably  be  amazed  at  the  numbers  of 
convincing  reasons  that  there  are  why  each  of  us  should 
die  when,  and  where,  and  how  we  do.  The  very  sight 
of  so  much  legislation  and  arrangement,  on  the  part  of 
God,  about  this  one  final  act  of  our  probation  is  doubt- 
less pouring  into  the  souls  of  the  Blessed  at  all  hours 
delightful  streams  of  wondering  adoration  and  exratic 
love.  Is  all  this  true  of  each  Christian  deathbed,  aud 
are  not  then  the  great  majority  of  Christians  saved? 

But  what  is  it  which  most  obviously  distinguishes 
catholics  from  all  other  men?  Surely  it  is  the  gift  of 
faith.  This,  next  to  the  Beatific  Vision  of  Himself  in 
heaven,  is  the  greatest  gift  which  God  can  give  to  His 
creatures ;  for  in  some  respects  it  may  be  said  to  be 
greater  than  sanctifying  grace,  because  it  is  its  indispen- 
sable foundation.  It  is  hard  to  realize  the  greatness  of 
a  gift  which  is  so  intimate  to  every  operation  of  oup 
lives.  But  we  may  gain  some  idea  of  its  importance 
when  we  remember  that  without  faith  no  sacraments 
avail,  and  that  with  the  loss  of  faith  we  lose  almost  all 
the  capabilities  of  setting  ourselves  right  when  we  have 
sinned.  It  is  a  gift  therefore  which  we  should  not  only 
guard  most  jealously,  but  which  we  should  increase  by 


884     THE  GEEAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS, 

exercise ;  for  that  it  is  capable  of  increase  by  our  own, 
correspondence  is  one  of  those  many  really  startling 
disclosures  of  divine  love,  at  which  nobody  is  startled 
because  they  are  so  common.  We  see  or  hear  of  souls 
wandering  in  the  darkness,  reading,  arguing,  writing, 
commenting,  collating  manuscripts,  all  in  perplexity 
because  they  cannot  perceive  the  Divinity  of  our  Blessed 
Lord,  while  to  every  catholic  child  that  sweet  convert- 
ing truth  is  plainer  than  the  sunshine  on  the  trees.  The 
little  fellow  could  not  doubt  it,  if  he  would.  lie  is  so 
sure  of  it,  that  he  would  be  beaten  to  death  rather  than 
say  it  was  not  true.  To  others  the  mystery  of  the  Most 
Holy  Trinity  presents  difficulties  of  the  most  insuperable 
kind,  how  God  can  be  One  God  yet  Three  Persons,  how 
the  Son  can  be  evermore  coequally  begotten  of  the 
Father,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  be  evermore  coequally  pro- 
ceeding from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  The  catholic 
finds  nothing  hard  in  it.  He  cannot  explain  it,  even  so 
far  as  theology  arrives  towards  an  explanation.  But  he 
knows  it  and  sees  it  as  distinctly  as  the  writing  of  a 
letter  or  the  pages  of  a  book.  Bewilder  him  as  you 
will,  you  cannot  inject  a  doubt  into  his  mind.  He  can- 
not help  himself;  he  is  more  certain  of  the  Holy 
Trinity,  than  he  is  of  your  existence  who  are  standing 
by  him  and  questioning  him.  0  glorious  necessity  of 
believing,  which  is  hardly  faith,  but  actual  contact  with 
a  supernatural  world,  as  if  the  prerogative  of  heaven 
was  only  to  see  God,  while  earth's  privilege  was  to  touch 
Him  in  the  dark  with  fearless  venture  and  with  thrilling 
love !  Heaven  must  indeed  be  beautiful,  if  the  saints 
can  part  there  with  their  gift  of  faith,  and  not  pine  to 
have  it  back  again  !  Yet  this  gift  every  catholic  re- 
ceives, not  the  faith  of  devils  who  believe  and  tremble* 
but  the  supernatural  gift  of  divine  faith.     It  is  faith  by 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVER?.      3S5 

which  so  many,  after  years  of  bid,  quietly  and  as  it  were 
naturally,  swing  round  to  their  anchors,  and  die  well. 
By  this  gift  the  catholic  sees  far  up  into  the  unbegin- 
ning  eternity  of  God,  and  beholds  his  own  soul  lying 
there  in  the  lap  of  that  eternal  love.  By  faith  he  sees 
the  unspeakable  operations  of  the  Holy  Trinity  with  its 
Innascibility,  Generation,  and  Procession.  By  faith  he 
scans  the  numberless  perfections  of  God.  By  faith  he 
Bees  Jesus,  God  and  Man,  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament. 
By  faith  he  beholds  Mary  on  her  mediatorial  throne. 
By  faith  the  joys  of  heaven,  the  delays  of  purgatory, 
the  pains  of  hell,  are  familiar  to  him  as  the  hills. 
and  streams  and  groves  where  his  childhood  played. 
By  faith  he  sees  the  lineaments  of  Jesus  in  His  priests, 
and  beholds  the  Precious  Blood  dropping  from  the  hand 
that  is  raised  to  give  him  absolution.  This  gift  is  com-. 
mon  to  all,  60  common  that  it  stays  with  us  even  when 
grace  has  left  us,  so  persevering  and  so  secure  of  itselt 
that  it  will  lodge  with  sin  and  fear  no  evil ;  and  is  there 
one  sign  of  predestination  of  which  30  much  can  be  said 
as  of  this  transcendent  gift,  which  of  its  sole  self  makes  . 
a  creature  of  God  into  a  catholio,  and  writes  upon  his 
brow  this  plain  inscription  of  his  Creator,  It  is  My 
especial  Will  that  this  creature  should  be  saved,  and  live 
with  Me  for  ever  ?~ 

The  Church  militant  on  earth  is  the  foreshadowing 
of  the  Church  triumphant  in  heaven.  The  destinies  of 
the  heavenly  Church  are  glassed  and  mirrored  on  the 
earthly  Church,  and  are  in  some  6ense  anticipated  there. 
The  end  of  the  earthly  Church  is  to  be  transplanted  into 
the  heavenly.  Is  it  not  a  difficulty,  unless  authority 
should  teach  it,  to  think  that  less  than  the  great  majo- 
rity of  the  earthly  plants  will  not  be  worth  transplant- 
ing?    Seed  is  wasted  in  sowing;    yet  the  earthly, 

~p .  T 

/ 


386  THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS* 

husbandman  garners  the  produce  of  by  far  the  greatest 
portion  of  what  he  sows,  even  when  birds,  and  blight, 
and  lawless  footpaths,  and  uncertain  weather,  and  waste, 
and  theft,  have  done  their  worst.     Shall  the  heavenly 
Husbandman  be  worse   off  than   they?     The  Church 
may  seem  a  failure ;  but  is  it  likely  to  be  so  in  reality? 
God  has  His  little   flock  of  saints,   of  eminent  souls 
whom  we  technically  call  saints.     These  He  leads  by 
extraordinary  paths.     He  introduces  them  into  a  mysti- 
cal world.     He  furnishes  them  with  peculiar  graces,  and 
endows   them   with  miraculous   powers.     He  inspires 
them  with  unearthly  tastes  for  suffering  and  abjection, 
deluges  them  with  the  most  unparalleled  afflictions  and 
trials,  consigns  them  for  years  to  the  intimate  assaults, 
not  unfrequently  to  the  bodily  possession,  of  demons, 
constantly  suspends  their  common   life  by  mysterious 
extasies,  and  then  again  plunges  them  into  such  pitchy 
darkness  that  they  hardly  know  if  they  are  in  a  state  of 
grace.     He  transfigures  all  their  senses,  He  drives  them 
to  the  most  appalling  austerities,  He  animates  them  to 
the  most  heroic  deeds  of  charitable  daring  for  the  good 
of  others,  He  renews  in  them  supernatural  likenesses  to 
His  Blessed  Son.    This  is  not  the  way  of  salvation,  nor 
even  the  way  of  perfection.     It  is  the  way  of  the  saints. 
No  one  is  introduced  into  it  except  by  God  Himself. 
He  takes  the  initiative.     Every  one  should  aspire  to 
perfection;  no  one  can  lawfully  aspire  to  what  is  tech- 
nically the  way  of  the  saints,  namely,   the  extatic* 

*  Many  mystical  theologians,  especially  among  the  Germans,  maintain  that 
extasy  is  the  natural  state  of  unfallen  man,  that  Adam  was  in  an  extatic  state 
until  the  fall,  and  by  consequence  our  Bles3cd  La  ly  all  her  life.  The  passage 
in  the  text  is  not  meant  to  express  so  much  as  this.  I  suppose  that  the  asce- 
tical  life  can  produce  what  are  technically  called  saints,  without  the  predo- 
minance of  the  mystical  element.  S.  Vincent  of  Paul  looks  like  an  instance 
of  this.  But  is  there  any  example  of  a  canonized  saint,  in  whom  there  was 
not  a  considerable  'admixture  of  the  mystical  life  ?    Anyhow  it  is  a  doctrina 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS.      337 

Nov  of  this  little  flock  some,  as  appears  from  the  records 
of  hagiology,  fail  and  come  to  an  evil  end.  But  they 
are,  comparatively  speaking,  few  in  number,  and  chiefly 
notable,  not  so  much  because  they  are  so  rare,  as  be- 
cause the  phenomenon  is  so  terrific.  He  has  two  other 
little  flocks,  composed  of  religious,  priests,  laity,  and 
many  simple  souls,  who  by  love  have  worked  themselves 
beyond  the  common  way  of  precepts  into  that  of  coun- 
sels and  of  the  inwardly  perfect  observance  of  the 
precepts.  These  are  two  ways  of  perfection,  often  com- 
bining, often  converging,  the  way  of  counsels,  and  the 
way  of  perfect  interior  observance  of  precepts.  Neither 
of  them  are  like  the  way  of  the  saints.  We  know  from 
the  lives  of  good  people,  and  especially  the  chronicles  of 
religious  orders,  that  many  out  of  these  little  flocks  go 
wrong  and  frustrate  the  sweet  purposes  of  God.  Some  fall 
back  into  the  common  way,  and  others  find  no  way  of 
salvation  because  they  refuse  the  way  in  which  God  has 
put  them.  But  surely  by  far  the  greater  number,  as 
far  as  we  can  judge  from  books,  persevere,  and  not  only 
save  their  souls,  but  avoid  purgatory,  or  are  high  in 
heaven.  Then  God  has  a  fourth  little  flock,  the  great 
multitude  of  catholics.  It  is  a  very  little  one  compared 
with  the  great  mass  of  men  on  earth,  and  it  is  yet  more 
divinely  distinguished  from  them,  than  even  the  saints 
or  the  perfect  are  from  itself.  A  catholic  has  more 
marks  of  special  love  multiplied  upon  him  as  compared 

of  great  importance  in  the  theology  of  the  9piritnal  life,  that  no  man  has  any 
right  to  aspire  to  be  what  is  technically  called  a  saint,  still  less  that  be  has 
any  obligation  to  do  so,  or  that  the  pursuit  of  perfection  in  any  way  invokes 
it.  I  venture  to  think  that  the  whole  controversy  about  the  obligation  of 
aiming  at  perfection  would  be  put  on  a  plainer  footing,  if  the  fourfold  division 
.  od  people,  given  in  the  text,  were  attended  to:  1.  the  saints,  who  tread 
tLe  extatic  or  mystical  way;  2.  those  who  aim  at  perfection  through  the 
counsels;  3.  those  who  aim  at  perfection  through  the  perfect  interior  observ- 
ance of  the  precepts:  4.  ordinarily  good  catholics,  saving  themselves  by  the 
ffetiueutatiou  of  the  sacrament*,  and  bj  obedience. 


CO 


3     THE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS. 


with  other  men,  than  a  saint  has  as  compared  with  an 
ordinary  catholic.  Why  may  we  not  think  of  this  fourtli 
little  flock,  as  we  think  of  the  others,  that  the  failures 
are  few,  and  the  successes  overwhelmingly  numerous, 
especially  as  we  have  more  grounds  to  go  upon  in  this 
last  case  than  in  any  of  the  others,  both  because  the 
failure  cannot  be  short  of  eternal  misery,  and  because 
an  equal,  if  not  a  greater,  amount  of  divine  predilection 
has  been  shown  ?  Of  those  who  were  compelled  to  come 
to  the  banquet  in  the  Gospel,  there  was  only  one  who 
■was  without  the  wedding  garment.* 

It  may  be  urged,  that  some  of  the  considerations, 
which  have  been  here  adduced,  apply  also  to  persons 
who  are  not  catholics.  God  be  praised  if  it  is  sol  The 
overflow  of  mercy  is  surely  not  an  argument  against  its 
existence.  That  were  strange  logic.  Doubtless  the 
mercy  of  God  covers  the  whole  earth  as  the  waters 
cover  the  sea.  It  is  one  of  our  best  joys  to  know  that 
its  abundance  is  beyond  our  gaze,  and  above  our  com- 
prehension. But  again  we  turn  to  those  who  are  before 
us,  to  catholics.  If  any  of  these  considerations  apply  to 
those  outside  the  Church,  and  if  moreover  they  are  true, 
then  a  fortiori,  as  logicians  say,  that  is,  with  tenfold 
greater  force,  will  they  apply  to  catholics.      And  so 

*  Since  the  publication  of  the  .first  edition  of  this  work  the  venerated  Presi- 
dent of  Ushaw  has  kindly  brought  under  my  notice  a  Censura  by  the  Fran- 
ciscan, Dominic  Lossada,  prefixed  to  the  Revelations  of  Brother  Joseph  <  f 
St.  Benedict,  a  Spanish  Benedictine  of  Monserrato.  Brother  Joseph  asserted 
that  the  truth  of  the  great  majority  of  catholics  being  saved,  (and  he  expresses 
his  view  almost  iu  the  terms  of  this  chapter.)  was  revealed  to  him,  and  he  de- 
clares that  he  is  "divinely  certain"  of  it.  Fart  of  Lossada's  Censura  is  occu- 
pied with  a  comment  on  this,  and  I  confess  I  was  surprised  at  the  array  of 
proof  and  authority  which  he  brings  in  favour  of  this  view.  I  might  have 
epokeu  less  guardedly,  and  with  fewer  restrictions,  had  I  seen  it  before  I 
wrote  my  book.  I  hoped  to  bare  added  that  part  of  the  Censura,  either  iu  a 
translation  or  in  the  original,  as  an  Appendix,  but  it  was  found  Uiat  it  would 
add  to  the  price  aud  thickness  of  the  volume. 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OP  BELIEVERS.  389 

whichever  way  we  turn,  the  same  benignant  conclusion 
look9  us  always  in  the  face. 

No  one  can  meditate  without  very  solemn  apprehen- 
sions upon  his  final  judgment.  Yet  it  is  the  deliberate 
conviction  of  our  best  thoughts  and  most  mature  reflec- 
tion, that  we  had  rather  leave  our  final  do^m  in  the 
hands  of  the  all-holy  God  than  in  those  of  the  most 
merciful  of  sinful  men.  Our  knowledge  of  God  doe3 
not  leave  us  room  for  a  moment's  hesitation.  Strange 
to  say  !  intimately  as  we  know  our  own  wretchedness, 
and  appalled  as  we  often  are  by  the  vision  of  our  own 
sins,  our  sense  of  security  in  the  hands  of  God  rises  in 
great  measure  from  the  fact  that  He  knows  U9  better 
than  any  one  else  can  know  us.  There  are  80  many 
things  by  which  God  will  not  judge  us,  and  by  which 
men  would  judge  us,  that  it  seems  as  if  our  deliverance 
from  these  was  already  half  a  verdict  in  our  favour. 
How  often  in  life  are  we  accused  wrongly  and  mis- 
takenly I  How  are  motives  imputed  to  us  which  we 
never  had  !  We  lose  our  temper  for  a  moment,  and 
are  judged  by  that  fact  for  years  to  come.  When  we 
do  wrong,  we  often  struggle  manfully  before  we  give 
way,  but  men  put  not  these  invisible  struggles  to  our 
account.  Full  of  want  of  simplicity  as  we  are,  and  far 
from  perfect  truth,  we  are  on  the  whole  always  more 
sincere  than  we  seem.  We  frequently  have  good  mo- 
tives for  imprudent  and  ill-looking  actions.  When  we 
often  appear  careless  and  unkind,  some  secret  sorrow  is 
oppressing  us,  or  anxiety  disturbing  us,  or  responsi- 
bility harassing  U9.  Now  God  sees  all  this  rightly,  and 
man  cannot  God  does  not  judge  us  by  any  of  these 
things;  man  must.  Hence  it  is, — a  strange  conclusion 
for  sinners  to  come  to! — that  God  loves  us  better  than 
men  do  because  He  knows  us  better. 


390  TEE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

He  judges  us  by  our  inward  religious  acts,  which 
necessarily  go  for  nothing  with  men.     He  judges  us  by 
the  fructifying  of  His  own  gifts  within  us,  a  very  slight 
portion  of  which  ever  becomes  visible  to  men,  and  even 
that  portion  only  partially  visible.     Moreover  He  judges 
us  as  He  sees  us  in  His  Son.     He  judges  us  by   the 
love  which  Mary,  angels,  and  saints  have  for  us.     And 
finally  He  judges  us  with  all  our  good   ever  collec- 
tively before  Him,  while  our  evil  is  interrupted  by  fre- 
quent absolutions,  and  our  sins  supernaturally  effac- 
ed by  the  Precious  Blood,  so  that  by  the  laws  of  His 
own  redeeming  love  He  cannot  see  them  in  the  same 
way  that  men  see  them.     Thus  we  are  most  reasonable 
in  preferring  rather  to  be  judged    by   God   than   by 
men.     The  actuenesses  of  their  criticism  are  far  more 
to  be  dreaded  than  the  niceties  of  His  justice,  when 
omnipotent  love  sits  by  a3  its   assessor.     Now  if   we 
judge  that  the  great  majority  of  catholics  will   not  be 
saved,  it  is  a  human  judgment;    and   like   all   human 
judgments  it  is  more  rigorous  than  the  divine,  because 
of  the  ignorance  and  the  temper  of  the  judge.     There- 
fore we  may  modestly  hope  that  God's  judgment  is 
otherwise,  and  that  the  great  majority  of  catholics  are 
saved.     It  is  only  applying  to  the  case  of  the  multitude 
what  we  each  of  us  find  true  in  our  own,  that  largeness 
and  allowance  in  the  Creator's  judgment,  which  it  is 
hopeless  to  look  for  at  the  tribunal  of  the  creature. 

Let  us  conclude  with  the  same  protest  with  which  we 
began.  This  is  not  theology;  it  is  divination,  divina- 
tion from  what  we  know  of  God  and  from  what  expe- 
rience has  taught  us  to  hope  of  men.  This  is  what  may 
be  said  on  the  bright  side  of  a  question,  which  can  have 
no  demonstration  either  way  on  this  side  the  grave. 
We  do  not  enunciate  it  as  certainly  true,  but  we  claim 


TI1E  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.  391 

to  say  it  as  lawful  to  be  said.  Moreover  it  must  be 
especially  observed  that  the  force  of  the  proof,  so  far  as 
it  is  a  proof,  is  cumulative.  The  arguments  are  many, 
but  it  is  not  asserted  that  any  of  them  are  sufficient 
by  themselves  to  prove  so  much.  The  proof  does  not 
rest  on  any  one,  or  any  two  or  three  of  them,  but  on  the 
cumulus.  Thus  to  pull  the  proof  to  pieces,  and  attack 
each  consideration  by  itself,  would  be  what  is  called  in 
logic  the  "  fallacy  of  division."  The  strength  of  the 
view  is  not  in  each  separate  member  of  the  proof,  but 
in  the  huge  improbability  that  so  many  considerations 
should  converge  upon  one  point,  should  combine  in  one 
cumulus,  and  yet  the  conclusion  from  them  be  untrue. 
An  adversary  must  meet  it  as  a  cumulative  proof,  or 
he  will  not  touch  the  question  at  all.  This  then  is  what 
may  be  said  on  the  bright  side  of  this  great  mystery 
and  difficulty.  It  is  the  bright  side,  not  only  because  it 
is  the  most  cheerful,  but  because  it  most  invites  to  holi- 
ness. Had  I  not  thought  so,  I  would  not  have  been 
at  the  pains  to  draw  out  the  proof.  I  am  deliberately 
convinced  that  this  view  will  make  men  more  con- 
scientious, more  austere,  more  strict,  more  spiritual, 
more  lovingly  exact  with  God,  than  the  opposite  view ; 
and  I  speak  from  experience,  and  not  merely  from  specu- 
lation. The  other  view,  as  I  have  seen,  repels  men  from 
common  attainments,  disheartens  them  in  even  necessary 
struggles,  and  is  almost  fatal  to  all  the  higher  kinds  of 
mortification,  and  so  to  the  pursuit  of  perfection.  The 
soul-destroying  laxity  of  rigorism  is  a  phenomenon  as 
common  as  it  is  melancholy.  Next  to  heresy,  there  ia 
nothing  I  should  so  much  deplore  as  to  give  currency  to 
any  opinions  which  should  seem,  however  indirectly,  to 
make  light  of  strictness,  penance,  purity,  ;«nd  In  liness 
of  life.     I  have  dwelt  on  the  view  containel  ia  this 


392  THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS. 

chapter,  precisely  because  I  regard  such  a  view  as  the 
most  efficacious  protest  against  the  prevailing  laxity. 

We  are  speaking  then  of  what  we  do  not  know.  Bub 
it  is  at  least  allowable  to  put  all  these  considerations  in 
opposition  to  those  which  justly  or  not,  give  us  hard 
and  to  our  weakness  dishonourable  thoughts  of  God.* 
They  are  not  doctrines.  They  are  not  certainties.  They 
are  inferences,  they  are  hopes,  they  are  speculations, 
which  are  surely  more  in  harmony  with  what  we  know 
of  our  most  righteous  and  most  compassionate  Creator, 
than  the  opposite  view.  Even  if  we  are  wrong,  which 
the  last  day  alone  will  show,  we  shall  be  better  men  for 
having  tried  to  think  such  thoughts  of  God  as  get  Him 
more  honour  among  men,  and  more  love  from  ourselves. 
God  knows  His  own  secret.  Blessed  be  His  inscrutable 
judgment!  Let  the  secret  rest  with  Him.  Doubt  is 
even  better  for  us  than  knowledge,  when  He,  who  is 
pure  love,  has  chosen  to  withhold  it  from  us. 

We  are  speaking  of  Catholics.  If  our  thoughts  break 
their  bounds,  and  run  out  beyond  the  Church,  nothing 
that  has  been  said,    has  been  said  with  any  view  to 

*  "  He  (Pere  de  Ravignan)  then  passed  to  a  subject  which  was  of  peculiar 
interest  to  me,  as  touching  the  sorest  place  of  a  parish  priest.  '  Suarez,'  said 
he,  '  has  a  discussion  on  the  fewness  of  the  saved,  whether  this  is  said  with. 
reference  to  the  world  or  the  Church ;  and  he  applies  it  to  the  world,  but  not 
to  the  Church.  I  think  he  is  right ;  this  is  the  result  of  a  ministry  of  twenty 
years  in  which  I  have  necessarily  had  large  experience;  it  is  the  feeling  also  of 
our  fathers  generally.  You  know  that  the  Church  teaches  that  attrition  only, 
combined  with  the  sacrament  of  penitence,  avails  to  salvation,  attrition  arising 
from  motives  of  fear  rather  than  of  love.  Contrition  by  itself,  one  act  of  pure 
love  by  the  soul,  avails  even  without  the  Sacrament,  if  there  be  a  firm  pur- 
pose and  desire  to  receive  it.  God  has  no  desire  for  the  sinner's  death.  Jan- 
senism has  done  great  harm  to  this  subject,  by  inspiring  a  sort  of  despair 
which  is  most  dangerous.'  I  observed  that  purgatory  was  the  necessary  com- 
plement of  such  a  doctrine.  '  It  is  so,'  said  he. '  and  though  God  is  alone  the 
judije  of  the  sufficiency  of  those  acts  of  the  dying,  yet  we  may  hope  that  a 
grear  number  come  within  tho  terms  of  salvation,  whatever  purifying  process 
they  may  afterward*  require.'"   Allies,   Journal  in  France,  i».  279. 


THE  GREAT  MASS  OF  BELIEVERS.  393 

those  without.  I  have  no  profession  of  faith  to  make 
about  them,  except  that  God  i9  infinitely  merciful  to 
every  soul,  that  no  one  ever  has  been,  or  ever  can  be, 
lost  by  surprise  or  trapped  in  his  ignorance;  and,  as  to 
those  who  may  be  lost,  I  confidently  believe  that  our 
Heavenly  Father  threw  His  arms  round  each  created 
spirit,  and  looked  it  full  in  the  face  with  bright  eyes  of 
love,  in  the  darkness  of  its  mortal  life,  and  that  of  its 
own  deliberate  will  it  would  not  have  Him. 


S?4r 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  WORLD. 

Mnquenda  tellus,  et  domus,  et  placena. 
Cxor :  oeque  harum,  quas  colis,  arborum 
Te,  prefer  invisas  cupressos, 

Ulla  brevem  dominum  seauetur. 

Horace. 

The  auestion  of  worldliness  is  a  verv  difficult  on?, 
and  one  which  we  would  gladly  have  avoided,  had  it 
been  in  our  power  to  do  so.  But  it  is  in  too  many  ways 
connected  with  our  subject,  to  allow  of  its  being  passed 
over  in  silence.  In  the  first  place,  a  thoughtful  objector 
will  naturally  say,  If  the  relation  between  the  Creator 
and  the  creature  is  such  as  has  been  laid  down  in  the 
first  eight  chapters,  and  furthermore  if  it  is  as  manifest 
and  undeniable  as  it  is  urged  to  be,  how  comes  it  to 
pass  that  it  is  not  more  universally,  or  at  least  more 
readily,  admitted  than  it  is?  Almost  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  world  betray  a  totally  opposite  conviction,  and 
reveal  to  us  an  almost  unanimous  belief  in  men,  that 
they  are  on  quite  a  different  footing  with  God  from  that 
one,  which  is  here  proclaimed  to  be  the  only  true  and 
tenable  one.  There  must  at  least  be  some  attempt  to 
explain  this  discrepancy  between,  what  we  see  and  what 
we  are  taught.  The  explanation,  we  reply,  is  to  be 
found  in  what  Christians  call  worldliness.  It  is  this 
which  stands  in  the  way  of  God's  honour,  this  which 
defrauds  Him  of  the  tribute  due  to  Him  from  His  crea- 
tures, this  which  even  blinds  their  eyes  to  His  undeni- 


THE  WORLD.  395 

able  right!  and  prerogatives.  How  God's  own  world 
comes  to  stand  between  Himself  and  the  rational  soul, 
how  friendship  with  it  is  enmity  with  Him, — indeed  an 
account  of  the  whole  matter  must  be  gone  into,  in 
order  to  show,  first,  that  the  influence  of  the  world  does 
account  for  the  non-reception  of  right  views  about  God, 
and,  secondly,  that  the  world  is  in  no  condition  to  be  called 
as  a  witness,  because  of  the  essential  falsehood  of  its 
character.  This  identical  falsehood  about  God  is  its 
very  life,  energy,  significance,  and  condemnation.  The 
right  view  of  God  is  not  unreal,  because  the  world 
ignores  it.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  because  it  is  real 
that  the  unreal,  world  ignores  it,  and  the  world's  ignor- 
ing it  is,  so  farforth,  an  argument  in  favour  of  the 
view. 

But  not  only  does  this  question  of  worldliness  present 
itself  to  us  in  connection  with  the  whole  teaching  of  the 
first  eight  chapters;  it  is  implicated  in  the  two  objec- 
tions which  have  already  been  considered,  namely,  the 
difficulty  of  salvation  and  the  fewness  of  the  saved.  If 
it  is  easy  to  be  saved)  whence  the  grave  semblance  of  its 
difficulty?  If  the  majority  of  adult  catholics  are  actu- 
ally saved,  because  salvation  is  easy,  why  is  it  necessary 
•  to  draw  so  largely  on  the  unknown  regions  of  the 
deathbed,  in  order  to  make  up  our  majority?  Why 
fcliuuld  not  salvation  be  almost  universal,  if  the  pardon 
of  fcin  is  so  easy,  grace  so  abundant,  and  all  that  is 
wanted  is  a  real  earnestness. about  the  interests  of  our 
souls?  If  you  acknowledge,  as  you  do,  that  the  look 
of  men's  lives,  even  of  the  lives  of  believers,  is  not  as  if 
they  were  going  to  be  saved,  and  that  they  are  going 
to  be  saved  in  reality  in  epite  of  appearances,  what  is 
the  explanation  of  these  appearances,  when  the  whole 
I'iocess  is  so  plain  and  easy  ?     To  all  this  the  answer  is, 


89C  THE  WORLD. 

that  sin  is  a  partial  explanation,  and  the  devil  is  a  par- 
tial explanation,  but  that  the  grand  secret  lies  in  world- 
liness. That  is  the  chief  disturbing  force,  the  prime 
counteracting  power.  It  is  this  mainly,  which  keeps 
clown  the  number  of  the  saved';  it  is  this  which  makes 
the  matter  seem  so  difficult  which  is  intrinsically  so 
easy  ;  nay,  it  is  this  which  is  a  real  difficulty,  though 
not  such  an  overwhelming  one  as  to  make  salvation 
positively  difficult  as  a  whole.  Plainly  then  the  phe- 
nomenon of  worldliness  must  be  considered  here,  else 
it  will  seem  as  if  an  evident  objection,  and  truly  the 
weightiest  of  all  objections,  had  not  been  t&ken  into 
account,  and  thus  an  air  of  insecurity  will  be  thrown, 
not  only  over  the  answer  to  the  two  preceding  objections, 
but  also  over  the  whole  argument  of  the  'flnt  eight 
chapters. 

This  enquiry  into  wbrlcUinesa  will,  in  the  third  place, 
truthfully  and  naturally  prepare  us  for  the  great  con- 
clusion of  the  whole  enquiry,  namely,  the  truth  that 
personal  love  of  God  is  the  only  legitimate  development 
of  our  position  as  creatures,  and  at  the  "same  time  the 
means  by  which  salvation  is  rendered  easy,  and  the 
multitude  of  the  saved  augmented.  "For  it  will  be  found 
that  the  dangers  of  worldliness  are  at  once  so  great  and 
so  peculiar,  that  nothing  but  a  personal  ldve  of  our 
Creator  will  'rescue  us  from  them,  enable  us  to  break 
with  the  world,  and  to  enter  into  the  actual  possession  of 
the  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God. 

0  it  is  a  radiant  land, — this  wide,  dutspread,  many- 
coloured  mercy  of  our  Creator  !  But  we  must  be  con- 
tent for  awhile  now  to  pass  out  of  its  kindling  sunshine 
into  another  land  of  most  ungenial  darkness,  in  the 
hope  that  we  shall  come  back  heavy  laden  with  booty  for 
God's  glory,  and  knowing  how  to  prize  the  sunshine 


TIIE  WORLD.  337 

moro  than  ever.  There  is  a  hell  already  upon  earth  ; 
there  is  something  which  is  excommunicated  from  God's 
smile.  It  is  not  altogether  matter,  nor  yet  altogether 
Spirit.  It  is  not  man  only,  nor  Satan  only,  nor  is  it 
exactly  sin.  It  is  an  infection,  an  inspiration,  an  atmos- 
phere, a  life,  a  colouring  matter,  a  pageantry,  a  fashion, 
a  taste,  a  witchery,  an  impersonal  but  a  very  recogniza- 
ble system.  None  of  these  names  suit  it,  and  all  of  them 
suit  it.  Scripture  calls  it,  "  The  World."  God's  mercy 
does  not  enter  into  it.  All  hope  of  its  reconciliation 
Tvith  Him  is  absolutely  and  eternally  precluded.  Re- 
pentance is  incompatible  with  its  existence.  The 
sovereignty  of  God  has  laid  the  ban  of  the  empire  upon 
it;  and  a  holy  horror  ought  to  seize  us  when  we  think 
of  it.  Meanwhile  its  power  over  the  human  creation  is 
terrific,  its  presence  ubiquitous,  its  deceitfulness  incredi- 
ble. It  can  find  a  home  under  every  heart  beneath  the 
poles,  and  it  embraces  with  impartial  affection  both 
happiness  and  misery.  It  is  wider  than  the  catholic 
Church,  and  is  masterful,  lawless,,  and  intrusive  within 
it.  It  cannot  be  damned,  because  it  is  not  a  person, 
but  it  will  perish  in  the  general  conflagration,  and  so  its 
tyranny  be  over,  and  its  place  know  it  no  more.  We 
are  living  in  it,  breathing  it,  acting  under  its  infla- 
ences,  being  cheated  by  its  appearances,  and  unwarily 
admitting  its  principles.  Is  it  not  of  the  last  importance 
to  us  that  we  should  know  something  of  this  huge 
evil  creature,  this  monstrous  sea-bird  of  evil,  which  flaps 
its  wings  from  pole  to  pole,  and  frightens  the  nations  into 
obedience  by  its  discordant  cries  ? 

But  we  must  not  be  deceived  by  this  description. 
The  transformations  of  the  spirit  of  the  world  are  among 
its  most  wonderful  characteristic*.  It  has  its  gentle 
Toice,  its  winning  manner?,  its  insinuating  address,  its 


398  THE  WORLD. 

aspect  of  beauty  and  attraction;  and  the  lighter  its  foot 
and  the  softer  its  voice,  the  more  dreadful  its  ap- 
proach. It  is  by  the  firesides  of  rich  and  poor,  in  happy 
homes  where  Jesus  is  named,  in  gay  hearts  which  fain 
■would  never  sin.  In  the  chastest  domestic  affections 
it  can  hide  its  poison.  In  the  very  sunshine  of  external 
nature,  in  the  combinations  of  the  beautiful  elements, — 
it  is  somehow  even  there.  The  glory  of  the  wind- 
swept forest  and  the  virgin  frost  of  the  alpine  summits 
have  a  taint  in  them  of  the  spirit  of  the  world.  It  can 
be  dignified  as  well.  It  can  call  to  order  sin  which  is 
not  respectable.  It  can  propound  wise  maxims  of  public 
decency,  and  inspire  wholesome  regulations  of  police. 
It  can  open  the  churches,  and  light  the  candles  on  the 
altar,  and  entone  Te  Deums  to  the  Majesty  on  high. 
It  is  often  prominently  and  almost  pedantically  on  the 
side  of  morality.  Then  again  it  has  passed  into  the 
beauty  of  art,  into  the  splendour  of  dress,  into  the  mag- 
nificence of  furniture.  Or  again  there  it  is,  with  high 
principles  on  its  lips,  discussing  the  religious  vocation 
,of  some  youth,  and  praising  God  and  sanctity,  while  it 
furges  discreet  delay,  and  less  self- trust,  and  more  con- 
siderate submissiveness  to  those  who  love  him  and  have 
'natural  rights  to  his  obedience.  It  can  sit  on  the  benches 
of  senates  and  hide  in  the  pages  of  good  books.  And 
yet  all  the  while  it  is  the  same  huge  evil  creature 
which  was  described  above.  Have  we  not  reason  to 
fear  it  ? 

Let  us  try  to  learn  more  definitely  what  the  world  is, 
the  world  in  the  scripture  sense.  A  definition  is  too 
short:  a  description  is  too  vague.  God  never  created 
it:  how  then  does  it  come  here?  There  is  no  land 
outside  the  creation  of  God,  which  could  have  harboured 
the  monster,  who  now  Usurps  so  much  of  this  beautiful 


THE  WORLD.  .399 

planet  on  which  Jesu9  was  born  an.l  die  J,  and  from 
•which  He  and  His  sinless  Mother  rose  to  heaven.  It 
6eems  to  be  a  sort  of  spirit  which  has  risen  up  from  a 
disobedient  creation,  as  if  the  results  and  after-conse- 
quences of  all  the  sins  that  ever  were  rested  in  the 
atmosphere,  and  loaded  it  with  some  imperceptible  but 

hlj  powerful  miasma.  It  cannot  be  a  person,  and 
yet  it  seems  as  if  it  possessed  both  a  mind  and  a  will, 
which  on  the  whole  are  amazingly  consistent,  so  as  to 
disclose  what  might  appear  to  be  a  very  perfect  self- 
consciousness.  It  is  painless  in  its  operations,  and 
unerring  too  ;  and  just  as  the  sun  bids  the  lily  be  white 
and  the  rose  red,  and  they  obey  without  an  effort, 
standing  side  by  side  with  the  same  aspect  and  in  the 
same  soil,  so  this  spirit  of  the  world  brings  forth  colours 
and  shapes  and  sense  in  our  different  actions  without 
the  process  being  cognizable  to  ourselves.  The  power 
of  mesmerism  on  the  reluctant  will  is  a  good  type  of 
the  power  of  this  spirit  of  the  world  upon  ourselves.  Id 
is  like  grace  only  that  it  is  its  contradictory. 

But  it  has  not  always  the  same  power.  If  the  ex- 
pression may  be  forgiven,  there  have  been  times  when 
the  world  was  less  worldly  than  usual ;  and  this  looks 
as  if  it  were  something  which  the  existing  generation  of 
men  always  gave  out  from  itself,  a  kind  of  magnetism  of 
varying  strengths  and  different  properties.  As  Satan 
is  sometimes  bound,  so  it  pleases  God  to  bind  the  world 
sometimes.  Or  He  thunders,  and  the  atmosphere  is 
cleared  for  awhile,  and  the  times  are  healthy,  and  the 
Church  lifts  her  head  and  walks  quicker.  But  on  the 
whole  its  power  appears  to  be  increasing  with  time. 
In  other  words  the  world  is  getting  more  worldly. 
Civilization  develops  it  immensely,  and  progress  helps 
it  on,  and  multiplies  its  capabilities.    In  the  matter  of 


400  TEE  WOULD. 

worldliness,  a  highly  civilized  time  is  to  a  comparatively 
ruder  time  what  the  days  of  machinery  are  to  those  of 
hand-labour.  We  are  not  speaking  of  sin;  that  is 
another  idea,  and  brings  in  fresh  considerations:  we  are 
speaking  only  of  worldliness.  If  the  characteristics  of 
modern  times  go  on  developing  with  the  extreme  velocity 
and  herculean  strength,  which  they  promise  now,  we 
may  expect,  just  what  prophecy  would  lead  us  to  an- 
ticipate* that  the  end  of  the  world  and  the  reign  of 
antichrist  will  be  times  of  the  most  tyrannical  worldli- 
ness. 

This  spirit  also  has  its  characteristics  of  time  and 
place.  The  worldliness  of  one  century  is  different  from 
that  of  another.  Now  it  runs  towards  ambition  in  the 
upper  classes  and  discontent  in  the  lower.  Now  to 
money-making,  luxury,  and  lavish  expenditure.  One 
while  it  sets  towards  grosser  sins,  another  while  towards 
wickedness  of  a  more  refined  description ;  and  another 
while  it  will  tolerate  nothing  but  educated  sin.  It  also 
has  periodical  epidemics  and  accessions  of  madness, 
though  at  what  intervals,  or  whether  by  the  operation  of 
any  law,  must  be  left  to  the  philosophy  of  history  to 
decide,  as  soon  as  statistics  have  had  time  to  become 
more  like  a  science.  Certain  it  is,  that  ages  have 
manias,  the  source  of  which  it  is  difficult  to  trace,  but 
■under  which  whole  communities,  and  sometimes  nations, 
exhibit  symptoms  of  diabolical  possession.  Indeed,  on 
looking  back,  it  would  appear  that  every  age,  as  if  an 
age  were  an  individual  and  gifted  with  an  individual 
life,  had  been  subject  to  some  ^vertigo  of  its  own  by 
•which  it  may  be  almost  known  in  history.  Very  often 
the  phenomena,  such  as  those  of  the  French  Revolution, 
Seem  to  open  out  new  depths  in  human  nature,  or  to 
betoken  the  presence  of  some  preternatural  spiritual 


THE  WORLD.  401 

iaflaences.  Then,  again,  ages  have  panics,  as  if  some 
Attribute  of  God  came  near  to  the  world  and  cast  a 
deep  shadow  over  its  spirit,  making  men's  hearts  quail 
for  fear. 

~  This  spirit  is  further  distinguished  by  the  evidences 
which  it  presents  of  a  fixed  view  and  a  settled  purpose. 
It  is  capricious,  but,  for  all  that,  there  is  nothing  about 
it  casual,  accidental,  fortuitous.  It  is  well  instructed 
for  its  end,  inflexible  in  its  logic,  and  making  directly, 
no  matter  through  what  opposing  medium,  to  its  ulti- 
mate results.  Indeed,  it  is  obviously  informed  with  the 
wisdom  and  the  subtlety  of  Satan.  It  is  his  greatest 
capability  of  carrying  on  his  war  against  God.  Like  a 
parasite  disease,  it  fixes  on  the  weak  places  in  men,  pan- 
dering both  to  mind  and  flesh,  but  chiefly  to  the  former. 
It  is  one  of  those  three  powers*  to  whom  such  dark 
pre-eminence  is  given,  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the 
devil ;  and  among  these  three  it  seems  to  have  a  kind 
of  precedence  accorded  to  it  by  the  way  in  which  our 
Lord  speaks  of  it  in  the  Gospel,  though  the  line  of  its 
diplomacy  has  been  to  have  itself  less  thought  of  and 
less  dreaded  than  the  other  two  ;  and,  unhappily  for  the 
interests  of  God  and  the  welfare  of  souls,  it  has  suc- 
ceeded. It  is  then  pre-eminent  among  the  enemies  of 
God.  Hence  the  place  which  it  occupies  in  Holy  Scrip- 
ture. It  is  the  world  which  hated  Christ,  the  world 
which  cannot  receive  the  Spirit,  the  world  that  loves 
its  own,  the  world  that  rejoices  because  Christ  has  gone 
away,  the  world  which  He  overcame,  the  world  for 
which  He  would  not  pray,  the  world  that  by  wisdom 
knew  not  God,  the  world   whose  spirit  Christians  were 

•  Modi  tentationum  varii  sunt,  eommuniter  vero  ad  tria  genera  reducing 
tur  came,  mundo,  et  dfcinoue,    &tnmt  de  gratia,  lib.  i.  0,  xiui.  u.  3, 
M  t 


402  THE  WORLD. 

not  to  receive,  the  world  that  was  not  worthy  of  tho 
saints,  the  world  whose  friendship  is  enmity  with  God, 
the  world  that  passeth  away  with  its  lusts,  the  world 
which  they  who  are  born  of  God  overcome,  or,  as  the 
Apocalypse  calls  it,  the  world  that  goes  wondering  after 
the  beast.  Well  then  might  St.  James  come  to  his 
energetic  conclusion,  Whosoever  therefore  will  be  a 
friend  of  this  world,  becometh  an  enemy  of  God.*  It 
is  remarkable  also  that  St.  John,  the  chosen  friend  of 
the  Incarnate  Word,  and  the  evangelist  of  His  Divinity, 
should  be  tho  one  of  the  inspired  writers  who  speaks 
most  often  and  most  emphatically  about  the  world,  as  if 
the  spirit  of  Jesus  found  something  especially  revolting 
to  it  in  the  spirit  of  the  world. 

It  is  this  world  which  wo  have  to  fight  against 
throughout  the  whole  of  our  Christian  course.  Our  sal- 
vation depends  upon  our  unforgiving  enmity  against  it. 
It  is  not  so  much  that  it  is  a  sin,  as  that  it  is  the  capa- 
bility of  all  sins,  the  air  sin  breathes,  the  light  by  which 
it  sees  to  do  its  work,  the  hot-bed  which  propagates  and 
forces  it,  the  instinct  which  guides  it,  the  power  which 
animates  it.  For  a  Christian  to  look  at,  it  is  disheart- 
eningly  complete.  It  is  a  sort  of  catholic  church  of  the 
powers  of  darkness.  It  has  laws  of  its  own,  and  tastes 
and  principles  of  its  own,  literature  of  its  own,  a  mis- 
sionary spirit,  a  compact  system,  and  it  is  a  consistent 
whole.  It  is  a  counterfeit  of  the  Church  of  God,  and  in 
the  most  implacable  antagonism  to  it.  The  doctrines  of 
the  faith,  the  practices  and  devotions  of  pious  persons, 
the  system  of  the  interior  life,  the  mystical  and  contem- 
plative world  of  the  Saints,  with  all  these  it  is  at  deadly 

*  S.  Jolin  vii.  7;  also  xiv.  17;  also  xv.  19;  also  xvi.  20 ;  also  ivi.  33;  also 
xni.  9;  also  1  Cor.  i.  21  j  also  ii.  12;  also  Heb.  xi.  38;  also  S.  James  iv.  4; 
also  l  John  ii.  17;  also  v.  4;  also  Apoc.  xiii.  3, 


war.  And  so  it  must  be.  The  view  which  the  Church 
takes  of  the  world  is  distinct  and  clear,  and  far  from 
flattering  to  its  pride.  It  considers  the  friendship  of  the 
world  as  enmity  with  God.  It  puts  all  the  world's 
affairs  under  its  feet,  either  as  of  no  consequence,  or  at 
least  of  very  secondary  importance.  It  has  great  faults 
to  find  with  the  effeminacy  of  the  literary  character, 
with  the  churlishness  of  the  mercantile  character,  with 
the  servility  of  the  political  character,  and  even  with  the 
inordinateness  of  the  domestic  character.  It  provokes 
the  world  by  looking  on  progress  doubtingly,  and  with 
what  appears  a  very  inadequate  interest;  and  there  is  a 
quiet  faith  in  its  contempt  for  the  world  extremely 
irritating  to  this  latter  power. 

The  world  on  the  contrary  thinks  that  it  is  going  to 
last  for  ever.  It  almost  assumes  that  there  are  no 
other  interests  but  its  own,  or  that  if  there  are,  they  are 
either  of  no  consequence,  or  troublesome  and  in  the  way. 
It  thinks  that  there  is  nothing  like  itself  anywhere,  that 
religion  was  made  for  its  convenience,  merely  to  satisfy 
a  want,  and  must  not  forget  itself,  or  if  it  claims  more, 
must  be  put  down  as  a  rebel,  or  chased  away  as  a 
grumbling  beggar;  and  finally  it  is  of  opinion,  that  of 
all  contemptible  things  spirituality  is  the  most  con- 
temptible, cowardly,  and  little.  Thus  the  Church  and 
the  world  are  incompatible,  and  must  remain  so  to  the 
cud. 

We  cannot  have  a  better  instance  of  the  unconge- 
niality  of  the  world  with  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  than 
their  difference  in  the  estimate  of  prosperity.  All  those 
mysterious  woes  which  our  Lord  denounced  against 
wealth,  have  their  explanation  in  the  dangers  of  world* 
liness.  It  is  the  peculiar  aptitude  of  wealth,  and  pomp, 
and  power,  to  harbour  the  unholy  spirit  of  the  world,  to 


404-  THE  WORLD. 

combine  with  it,  and  transform  themselves  into  it,  which 
called  forth  the  thrilling  malediction  of  our  Lord. 
Prosperity  may  be  a  blessing  from  God,  but  it  may 
easily  become  the  triumph  of  the  world.  For  the  most 
part  the  absence  of  chastisement  is  anything  but  a  token 
of  God's  love.  When  prosperity  is  a  blessing,  it  is 
generally  a  condescension  to  our  weakness.  Those  are 
fearful  words,  Thou  hast  already  received  thy  reward ; 
yet  how  many  prosperous  men  there  are,  the  rest  of 
whose  lives  will  keep  reminding  us  of  them ;  the  ten- 
dency of  prosperity  in  itself  is  to  wean  the  heart  from 
God,  and  fix  it  on  creatures.  It  gives  us  a  most  unsu- 
pernatural  habit  of  esteeming  others  according  to  their 
success.  As  it  increases,  so  anxiety  to  keep  it  increases 
also,  and  makes  men  restless,  selfish,  and  irreligious; 
and  at  length  it  superinduces  a  kind  of  effeminacy  of 
character,  which  unfits  them  for  the  higher  and  more 
heroic  virtues  of  the  Christian  character.  This  is  but  a 
sample  of  the  different  way  in  which  the  Church  and 
the  world  reason. 

Now  it  is  this  world  which,  far  more  than  the  devil, 
far  more  than  the  flesh,  yet  in  union  with  both,  makes 
the  difficulty  we  find  in  obeying  God's  commandments, 
or  following  His  counsels.  It  is  this  which  makes  earth 
such  a  place  of  struggle  and  of  exile.  Proud,  exclusive,. 
anxious,  hurried,  fond  of  comforts,  coveting  popularity, 
with  an  offensive  ostentation  of  prudence,  it  is  this 
worldliness  which  hardens  the  hearts  of  men,  stops  their 
ears,  blinds  their  eyes,  vitiates  their  taste,  and  ties  their 
hands,  so  far  as  the  things  of  God  are  concerned.  Let 
it  be  true  tjiat  salvation  be  easy,  and  that  by  fur  the 
greater  number  of  catholics  are  saved,  it  is  still  unhap- 
pily true  thac  the  relations  of  the  Creator  and  the 
creature,  as  put  forward  in  this  treatise,  are  not  so 


TTTE  WORLD*  405 

universally  or  so  practically  acknowledged  ns  tliey  ought 
to  be.  AYhy  is  this?  Sin,  as  was  said  before,  is  a 
partial  answer.  The  devil  is  another  partial  answer. 
But  I  believe  worldliness  lias  got  to  answer  fur  a  great 
deal  of  sin,  and  for  a  great  deal  of  devil,  besides  a  whole 
deluge  of  iniquity  of  its  own,  which  is  perpetually  de- 
basing good  works,  hindering  perfection,  preparing  ma- 
terials for  sin,  assisting  the  devil  in  his  assaults,  and 
working  with  execrable  assiduity  against  the  sacraments 
and  grace.  The  world  is  for  ever  lowering  the  heavenly 
life  of  the  Church.  If  there  ever  was  an  age  in  which 
this  was  true,  it  is  the  present.  One  of  the  most 
frightening  features  of  our  condition  is,  that  we  are  so 
little  frightened  of  the  world.  The  world  itself  has 
brought  this  about.  Even  spiritual  books  are  chieily 
occupied  with  the  devil  and  the  flesh;  and  certain  of 
the  capital  sins,  such  as  envy  and  sloth,  no  longer  hold 
the  prominent  places  which  they  held  in  the  systems  of 
the  elder  ascetics;  and  yet  they  are  just  those  vices 
which  contain  most  of  the  ungodly  spirit  of  the  world. 
The  very  essence  of  v/orldliness  seems  to  consist  in  its 
making  us  forget  that  we  are  creatures;  and  the  more 
this  view  is  reflected  upon,  the  more  correct  will  it 
appear. 

When  our  Blessed  Lord  describes  the  days  before  the 
Flood,  and  again  those  which  shall  precede  the  end  of 
the  world,  He  portrays  them  rather  as  times  of  world- 
liness than  open  sin.  Men  were  eating  and  drinking, 
marrying  and  giving  in  marriage:  and  He  says  no  more. 
Now  none  of  these  things  are  wrong  in  themselves, 
"We  can  eat  and  drink,  as  the  apostle  teaches  us,  to  the 
glory  of  God,  and  marriage  was  a  divine  institution  at 
the  time  of  the  Flood,  and  is  now  a  Christian  Sacra- 
un.ni.     Iu  the  tame  way  when  lie  describes  the  lite  oi 


406  THE  WORLD. 

the  only  person  whom  the  gospel  narrative  follows  into 
the  abode  of  the  lost,  He  sums  it  up  as  the  being  clothed 
in  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  feasting  sumptuously  every 
day.     Here  again  there  is  nothing  directly  sinful  in  the 
actions  which  He  names.     It  surely  cannot  be  a  mortal 
sin  to  have  fine  linen,  nor  will  a  man  lose  a  state  of 
grace  because  he  feasts  sumptuously  every  day,  pro- 
vided that  no  other  sins  follow  in  the  train  of  this  soft 
life.     The  malice  of  it  all  is  in  its  worldliness,  in  the 
fact  that  this  was  all  or  nearly  all  the  lives   of  those 
before   the   flood,    of  those  before   the  days    of  anti- 
christ, and  of   the  unhappy  Dives.     Life   began    and 
ended  in  worldliness.     There  was  nothing  for  God.     It 
was  comprised  in  the  pleasures  of  the  world,  it  rested  in 
them,  it  was  satisfied  by  them.     Its   characteristic  was 
sins  of  omission.     Worldliness  might  almost  be  defined 
to  be  a  state  of  habitual  sins  of  omission.     The  devil 
urges  men  on  to  great  positive  breaches  of  the  divine 
commandments,     The  passions  of  the  flesh  impel  sin- 
ners to  give  way  to  their  passions  by  such  dreadful  sins, 
as  catch  the  eyes  of  men  and  startle  them  by  their 
iniquity.     Worldliness  only  leads  to  these  things  occa- 
sionally, and  by  accident.     It  neither  scandalizes  others, 
nor   frightens   the   sinner   himself.     This  is  the  very 
feature  of  it,  which,  rightly  considered,  ought  to  be  so 
terrifying.     The  reaction  of  a  great  sin,  or  the  shame 
which  follows  it,  are  often  the  pioneers  of  grace.     They 
give  self-love  such  a  serious  shock,  that  under  the  in- 
fluence of  it  men  return  to  God,     Worldliness   hides 
from  the  soul  its  real  malice,  and  thus  keeps  at  arm's 
length  from  it  some  of  the  most  persuasive  motives  to 
repentance.     Thus  the  pharisees  are  depicted  in  the 
gospel  as  being  eminently  worldly.     It  is  worldliness, 
not  immorality,  which  is  put  before  us.    There  is  even 


THE  WOULD  407 

much  of  moral  decency,  much  of  respectable  observance, 
much  religious  profession  ;  and  yet  when  our  Blessed 
Saviour  went  among  them,  they  were  further  from  grace 
than  the  publicans  and  sinners.  They  had  implicit 
hatred  of  God  in  their  hearts  already,  which  became 
explicit  as  soon  a9  they  saw  Him.  The  Magdalen,  the 
Samaritan,  the  woman  taken  in  adultery, — it  was  these 
who  gathered  round  Jesus,  attracted  by  His  sweetness, 
and  touched  by  the  grace  which  went  out  from  Him. 
The  pharisees  only  grew  more  cold,  more  haughty,  more 
self-opinionated,  until  they  ended  by  the  greatest  of  all 
Bins,  the  crucifixion  of  our  Lord.  For  worldliness,  when 
its  selfish  necessities  drive  it  at  last  into  open  sin,  for  the 
most  part  sins  more  awfully  and  more  impenitently  than 
even  the  unbridled  passions  of  our  nature.  So  again 
there  was  the  young  man  who  had  great  possessions, 
and  who  loved  Jesus  when  he  saw  Him,  and  wished  to 
follow  Him.  He  was  a  religious  man,  and  with  hum- 
lie  scrupulosity  observed  the  commandments  of  God  ; 
but  when  our  Lord  told  him  to  sell  all  and  give  the 
price  to  the  poor  and  to  follow  Him,  he  turned  away 
sorrowful,  and  was  found  unequal  to  such  a  blessed 
vocation.  Now  his  refusing  to  sell  his  property  was 
surely  not  a  mortal  sin.  It  does  not  appear  that  our 
Lord  considered  him  to  have  sinned  by  his  refusal.  It 
was  the  operation  of  worldliness.  "We  do  not  know 
what  the  young  man's  future  was ;  but  a  sad  cloud  of 
misgivings  must  hang  over  the  memory  of  him  whom 
Jesus  invited  to  follow  Him,  and  who  turned  away.  Is 
he  looking  now  in  heaven  upon  that  Face,  from  whose 
mild  beauty  he  so  sadly  turned  away  on  earth  ? 

Thus  the  outward  aspect  of  worldliness  is  not  sin. 
Its  character  is  negative.  It  abounds  in  omissions. 
Yet  throughout  the  Gospels  our  Saviour  seems  pur- 


408  TEE  WORLD. 

posely  to  point  to  ib  rather  than  to  open  sin.     When 
the  young  man  turned  away,  His  remark  was,  How 
hard  it  is  for  those  who  have  riches  to  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  !     But  the  very  fact  of  our  Lord's 
thus  branding  worldlinesa  with  His  especial  reproba- 
tion  is  enough   to  show  that  it  is  in  reality  deeply 
sinful,  hatefully  sinful.     It  is  a  life  without  God  in  the 
world.     It  is  a  continual  ignoring  of  God,  a  continual 
quiet   contempt  of  His  rights,  an  insolent  abatement 
in  the  service  which  He  claims  from   His  creatures. 
Self  is  set  up  instead  of  God.     The  canons  of  human 
respect  are  more  looked  up  to  than  the  Divine  Com- 
mandments,    God  is  very  little  adverted  to.     He  is 
passed  over.     The  very  thought  of  Him  soon  ceases 
to  make  the  worldly  man  uncomfortable.     Indeed  all 
his  chief  objections  to  religion,  if  he  thought  much 
about  the  matter,  would  be  found  to  repose  on  his 
apprehension  of  it  as  restless  and  uncomfortable.     But 
all  this  surely  must  represent  an  immensity  of  interior 
mortal  sin.     Can  a  man  habitually  forget  God  and  be 
in  a  state  of  habitual  grace?     Can  he  habitually  prefer 
purple  garments  and  sumptuous  fare  to  the  service  of 
his  Creator,  and  be  free  of  mortal  sin  ?     Can  he  make 
up  a  life  for  himself  even  of  the  world's  sinless  enjoy- 
ments, such  as  eating,  drinking,  and  marrying,  and  will 
not  the  mere  omission  of  God  from  it  be  enough  to  con- 
stitute  him  in  a  state  of  deadly  sin  ?     At  that  rate  a 
moral  atheist  is  more  acceptable  to  God  than  a  poor 
sinner  honestly  but  feebly  fighting  with  some  habit  of 
vice,  to  which  his  nature  and  his  past  offences  set  so 
Strongly,  that  he  can  hardly  lift  himself  up.     At  that 
rate  the  Pharisees  in  the  Gospel  would  be  the  patterns 
for  our  imitation,  rather  than  the  publicans  and  sinners; 
or  at  least  they  would  be  as  safe  to  follow.    Or  shall 


TIIE  VS'OELD.  409 

we  say  that  faith  is  enough  to  save  us  without  charity? 
If  a  man  only  believe3  rightly,  let  him  eat  and  drink 
and  be  gaily  clothed,  and  let  him  care  for  nothing  else, 
and  at  least  that  exclusive  love  of  creatures,  thr.t 
omission  of  the  Creator,  provided  only  it  issues  in  i.a 
other  outward  acts  than  his  fine  dinners  and  his  expen- 
sive clothes,  shall  never  keep  his  soul  from  heaven. 
His  purple  and  his  sumptuous  feasting  shall  be  hia 
beatific  vision  here,  and  then  his  outward  morality  shall 
by  God?s  mercy  hand  him  on  to  his  second  beatific 
Vision,  the  Vision  of  the  beauty  ot  God,  and  the  eternal 
ravishment  of  the  Most  Holy  and  Undivided  Trinity  ! 
Can  this  be  true  ? 

Yet  on  the  other  hand,  we  may  not  make  into  sins 
what  God  has  not  made  sins.     How  is  this  ?  0  it  is 
the  awful  world  of  inward  sin  which  is  the  horror  of 
all  this  worldliness!     It  is  possession,  worse  far  than 
diabolical  possession,  because  at  once  more  hideous  and 
more  complete.     It  is   the  interior  irreligiousness,  the 
cold  pride,  the  hardened  heart,  the  depraved  sense,  the 
real  unbelief,  the  more  than  implicit  hatred  of  God, 
which  makes  the  soul  of  the  worldly  man  an  actual 
moral  and  intellectual  hell  on  earth,  hidden  by  an  out- 
ward show  of  faultless  proprieties,  which  only  make  it 
more  revolting  to  the  Eye  that  penetrates  the  insult- 
ing disguise.      The  secret  sins  moreover  of  the  worldly 
are  a  very  sea  of  iniquity.     Their  name  is  legion  ;  they 
cannot  be  counted.     Almost  every  thought  is  sin,  be- 
cause of  the   inordinate    worship  of  self  that  is  in  it. 
Admost  every  step  is  sin,  because  it  is  treading  under- 
foot some  ordinance  of  God.   It  is  a  life  without  prayer, 
a  life  without  desire  of  heaven,  a  life  without  fear  of 
hell,  a   life   without  love  of  God,  a  life  without  any 
supernatural  habits  at  all.     Is  not  hell  the  most  natural 


410  THE  WORLD. 

transition  from  such  a  life  as  this?  Heaven  is  not  a 
sensual  paradise.  God  is  the  joy,  and  the  beauty,  and 
the  contentment  there:  all  is  for  God,  all  from  God, 
all  to  God,  all  in  God,  all  round  God  as  the  beautiful 
central  fire  about  -which  His  happy  creatures  cluster  in 
amazement  and  delight.  Whereas  in  worldliness  God 
is  the  discomfort  of  the  whole  thing,  an  intrusion  an 
unseasonable  thought,  an  inharmonious  presence,  like  a 
disagreeable  uninvited  guest,  irritating  and  fatiguing  us 
by  the  simple  demand  His  presence  makes  on  our 
sufferance  and  our  courtesy.  Surely  such  a  man  has  sin 
in  his  veins  instead  of  blood! 

Worldliness  then  is  a  life  of  secret  sins.  It  is  such 
an  irresistible  tendency  to  sin,  such  a  successful  encour- 
agement of  it,  such  a  genial  climate,  such  a  collection 
of  favourable  circumstances,  such  an  amazing  capability 
of  sin,  that  it  breeds  actual  sins,  regularly  formed  and 
with  all  the  theological  requirements,  by  millions  and 
millions.  If  we  read  what  the  catechism  of  the  Council 
of  Trent  says  of  sins  of  thought,  we  shall  see  how  mar- 
vellously prolific  sins  can  be,  and  what  a  preeminently 
devastating  power  sins  of  thought  in  particular  exer- 
cise within  the  soul.  In  numberless  cases  open  and 
crying  sins  must  come  at  last.  Still  we  must  remem- 
ber that  on  the  whole  there  are  two  characteristics 
which  always  distinguish  sins  of  worldliness  from  sins 
of  the  passions,  or  sins  of  direct  diabolical  temptation. 
The  respectability  which  worldliness  affects  leads  it 
rather  to  satisfy  itself  in  secret  sins.  Indeed  its  wor- 
ship of  self,  its  predilection  for  an  easy  life,  would 
hinder  its  embarking  in  sins  which  take  trouble,  time, 
and  forethought,  or  which  run  risks  of  disagreeable  con- 
sequences, and  therefore  would  keep  it  confined  within 
a  sphere  of  secret  sins.    And  in  the  next  place  its  love 


THE  WOULD.  41 X 

of  comfort  makes  it  so  habitually  disinclined  to  listen  to 
the  reproaches  of  conscience,  or  the  teasing  solicitations 
of  grace,  that  it  passes  into  the  state  of  a  seared  con- 
science, a  deadened  moral  sense,  with  a  speed  which 
vs  unknown  even  to  cruelty  or  sensuality. 

A  seared  conscience  I*     This  is  a  fearful  possibility, 
and  yet  to  use  the   apostle's  expression,    "  the   Spirit 
manifestly  saith"    that   there   is   such  a  thing.     It  13 
according  to  St.  Paul  one  of  the  marks  of  heresy.     1 5 
belongs  also  peculiarly  to  worldliness.     To  have  gone 
on  for  such  a  length  of  time  doing  wrong  that  we  have  at 
last  ceased  to  advert  to  its  being  wrong,  to  sin  and  for 
the  monitor  within  to  be  silent,  to  forget  God  and  not 
to  remember  that  we  are  forgetting  Him, — all  this  is 
surely  far  worse  than  to  be  a  savage  or  an  idolator. 
But  this  is  to  have  a  seared  conscience.     This  is  the 
tendency  of  worldliness,  a  tendency  which  it  can  de- 
velop with  incomparable  swiftness.      And  then  where 
is  the  power  o£  coming  right  again?     "We  have  drifted 
away  from  all  the  sweet  facilities  of  repentance.     We 
have  hardened  ourselves  against  the  ordinary  impetus 
of  grace.     We   have  made  ourselves  so  unlovely  that 
grace  would  shun  us  if  it  could.     We  have  sold  our- 
selves to  the  devil,  and  he  has  got  us  safe  before  the 
proper  time.     With  most  men  it  is  enough  to  say  that 
if  they  erred,  at  least  they  had  a  good  conscience  about 
it,  or  that  their  conscience  told  them  it  was  wrong, 
and  they  are  sorry  they  gave  way.     But  if  we  have  a 
seared  conscience,  neither  of  these  things  avail.     We 
have  forgotten  and  pretermitted  God:  we  did  so  con- 
tumeliously  at  first ;  but  now   our  habitual  contempt 
has  superinduced  oblivion  :   it  seems  as  if  lie  were  going 
to  retaliate,  to  pay  us  back  in  our  own  coin,  and  for  the 

•  1  Tim.  ir. 


412  THE  WORLD. 

present  at  least  to  pretermit  us.  We  no  longer  know 
when  we  are  in  danger.  We  have  lost  our  chart.  W© 
can  tell  nothing  of  our  latitude  and  longitude.  No  land 
is  in  sight :  nothing  but  a  waste  of  boundless  water*. 
The  sun  is  hidden,  and  we  can  take  no  observations,  and 
have  taken  none  for  ever  so  long  a  time.  The  night  is 
so  grim  and  murky,  that  not  a  star  will  give  us  an  in- 
distinct notion  where  we  are;  and  the  needle  is  snapped 
and  we  know  neither  north  nor  south,  nor  east,  nor 
west.  "What  are  our  chancer  of  safety  now?  There 
has  come  upon  us  the  fatal  woe  of  Isaias,*  Woe  to  you 
that  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil,  that  put  darkness  for 
light,  and  light  for  darkness,  that  put  bitter  for  sweet, 
and  sweet  for  bitter.  There  is  nothing  to  compare  with 
worldliness  for  vitiating  the  moral  taste.  There  are  some 
possibilities  on  earth  which  we  cannot  bear  to  think  of 
without  shuddering.  It  is  generally  God's  merciful 
ordinance  that  we  should  not  know  them  in  the  iridi* 
vidual  cases,  even  when  we  see  them.  One  of  these  is 
the  possibility  of  a  man's  going  hopelessly  out  of  his 
mind,  when  he  is  in  a  state  of  mortal  sin.  If  he  is  to 
have  no  intermission  of  his  madness,  no  lucid  interval 
before  his  death,  if  he  was  actually  in  mortal  sin  when 
the  last  step  of  his  abberration  was  completed,  and  reason 
had  abdicated  her  throne  entirely,  then  he  is  as  it  were 
damned  already.  He  walks  about  the  earth  a  living 
part  of  hell.  His  fate  is  sealed  while  the  sun  still  shines 
upon  his  head,  and  the  flowers  grow  beneath  his  feet, 
and  the  birds  sing  as  he  passes.  He  smiles,  but  he  is 
lost.  He  sings,  but  he  is  the  hopeless  property  of  God*3 
great  enemy.  Kindness  touches  his  heart,  but  grace 
has  ebbed  from  it  for  ever.  He  belongs  to  the  dismal 
centre  of  the  earth ;  it  is  only  by  accident  that  he  is 

*  Cap.  7. 


THE   WORLD.  413 

walking  on  its  radiant  surface.  This  is  one  of  earth's 
fearful  possibilities.  And  the  seared  conscience  of  world- 
liness  is  a  desperately  near  approach  to  this.  Faith  is  still 
there,  and  reason  also,  and  a  miracle  of  grace  can  rouse 
them  both.  But  are  worldly  people  the  likely  subjects 
of  God's  miracles?  The  sweet  miracle  of  conversion 
haunts  the  company  of  publicans  and  sinners,  not  the 
undoubiing  self-sufficiency  of  this  world's  pharisees.  O 
poor  worldling,  maliciously  and  guiltily  unsuspecting 
now  of  thy  real  state,  that  man  who  went  mad  in  mortal 
sin  is  thy  shadow,  thy  brother,  and  thy  type! 

Now  every  one  of  these  phenomena  of  worldliness 
may  be  resolved  into  a  forgetfulness  that  we  are  crea- 
tures. There  is  no  look  about  the  life  of  Dives  that 
he  remembered  he  was  a  creature.  There  might  be 
mingled  with  his  characteristic  good  nature  which 
made  him  love  his  brothers  so  much  and  give  alms  to 
Lazarus,  some  confused  notions  of  duty  to  a  Creator; 
but  any  abiding  sense  of  his  being  a  creature  there 
was  none.  He  solved  the  problem  of  the  possibility 
of  these  two  forgetfulnesses  being  separated,  that  of 
having  a  Creator  and  that  of  being  a  creature.  It  is 
this  forgetfulness  which  is  the  fountain  of  almost  all 
sins  of  omission.  A  worldly  man  never  looks  like  a 
man  who  so  lives  as  having  to  give  an  account  of  him- 
self to  a  higher  power.  Anything,  which  should  evince 
a  tense  of  an  invisible  world,  would  be  incongruous  in 
his  ordinary  conduct;  and  if  from  early  associations  or 
natural  timorousness  of  character  he  should  betray  any 
euch  sense,  it  would  instantly  take  the  form  of  super- 
stition rather  than  that  of  religion.  When  the  devil 
tempts  a  man  to  a  great  sin  of  passion,  such  as  murder, 
or  sensuality  at  last  beguiles  a  man  to  relapse  into  his 
intemperance,  in  neither  of  theee  cases  does  he  forget 


414  THE  WORLD. 

that  he  is  a  creature.  Indeed  it  is  his  advertence  to 
the  law  of  his  Creator  which  gives  the  malice  to  his 
sin.  But  there  is  no  struggle  in  worldliness.  It  is  a 
false  faith,  a  false  religion.  It  does  not  recognize  the 
rights  of  the  Creator,  nor  occupy  itself  with  the  duties 
of  the  creature.  It  begins  with  self  and  ends  with  self, 
and  if  compelled  to  lodge  an  appeal  outside  itself,  it 
appeals  to  the  judgments  of  human  respect.  Where- 
ever  there  is  worldliness,  there  is  the  forgetfulness 
that  we  are  creatures;  and  wherever  there  is  this 
forgetfulness  that  we  are  creatures,  there  also  is  world- 
liness. 

When  a  man's  sympathies  are  with  a  disloyal  State 
rather  than  with  the  Holy  See,  there  is  worldliness. 
The  world  is  preferred  before  the  Church.  When 
men  object  to  the  doctrine  of  religious  vocation,  and 
without  other  reasons  than  a  certain  instinct  try  to 
hinder  their  children  from  entering  religious  orders, 
there  is  worldliness.  The  one  work  of  the  creature  to 
do  the  Creator's  will  is  overlooked  or  unacknowledged. 
When  men  are  ashamed  of  their  religion  before  here- 
tics, especially  of  its  distinctive  practices  and  unpopular 
doctrines,  there  is  worldliness.  The  creature  forgets 
himself,  and  makes  himself  the  standard  of  truth. 
Wherever  men,  who  are  not  to  their  own  sensible  cost 
taking  up  the  cross  daily  and  following  Christ,  inveigh 
against  religious  enthusiasm  or  the  want  of  moderation 
in  piety,  there  is  worldliness.  The  creature  wants  to 
limit  the  service  of  the  Creator.  When  men  do  not 
give  alms,  or  give  them  scantily,  or  give  them  in  an 
eccentric  and  peculiar  way,  there  is  worldliness.  The 
creature  either  claims  as  his  own  what  he  only  holds  at 
the  good  pleasure  of  his  Creator,  or  he  claims  to  satisfy 
Lis  own  whim  and  caprice  in  the  way  in  which  he  pays 


THE  WORLD.  41 J 

il  back  to  hifl  Creator.  Indeed  all  developments  of 
worldliness  exhibit  some  obliquity  in  a  man's  percep- 
tion of  the  true  relations  between  tho  Creator  and  the 
creature.  Ought  we  not  then  seriously  to  ask  our- 
selves if  we  have  any  right  to  be  so  little  afraid  of 
worldliness  as  we  are?  If  an  evil  is  universal,  if  it  is 
almost  imperceptible,  if  it  is  generally  fatal,  if  we  know 
it  to  be  in  the  middle  of  us,  and  if  the  not  suspecting 
that  we  have  it,  is,  or  may  be,  one  of  the  worst  symp- 
toms of  our  having  it,  does  not  prudence  suggest  to  us 
almost  an  excess  in  caution,  almost  a  nervousness  of 
fear,  almost  a  fancifulness  of  apprehension?  Is  it  well 
that  we  should  be  so  calm  and  cool?  Is  it  certain  that 
our  calmness  and  our  coolness  are  not  actual  proofs  of 
tjio  disease?  Worldliness  only  requires  one  condition 
for  its  success, — that  we  should  not  fear  it.  He  who 
fears  God,  must  also  fear  the  world,  and  he  who  fears 
the  world  need  never  fear  that  he  has  lost  the  fear  of 
God. 

It  is  hard  to  live  in  a  place  and  avoid  the  spirit  of  ir. 
11  is  hard  to  live  in  the  world  and  avoi  1  worldliness. 
Yet  this  is  what  we  have  to  do.  The  world  we  cannot 
leave  till  God  summons  us:  but  worldliness,  which  is  the 
spirit  of  the  world,  should  not  be  allowed  to  infect  us. 
As  the  smell  of  fire  had  not  passed  upon  the  garments 
of  the  three  children  in  the  burning  fiery  furnace,  so 
must  the  odour  of  worldliness  not  pass  upon  our  souls. 
But  to.  the  avoiding  of  worldliness  no  help  is  more 
efficacious  than  having  a  right  and  fix^l  view  of  the 
world.  There  are  two  views  of  the  world  which  Chris- 
tians may  take,  two  views  which  are  actually  taken  I>v 
those  who  are  striving  to  serve  God  and  to  love  Him 
purely.  Which  of  the  two  view3  a  man  takes  depends 
partly  upon  his   early   associations,   partly   upon  his 


416  TEE  WOULD. 

natural  character,  and  partly  upon  the  circumstan- 
ces of  his  vocation;  and,  his  spiritual  life  will  be 
found  to  1)3  considerably  modified  by  the  pariicular 
view  which  he  is  led  to  take.  Some  take  a  very 
gloomy  view  of  the  world.  To  them  it  seems  altogether 
bad,  wholly  evil,  irredeemably  lost.  Everything  is 
danger;  for  there  is  sin  everywhere.  All  its  roses  have 
thorns  under  the  leaves.  There  is  a  curse  upon  every- 
thing belonging  to  it.  Its  joys  are  only  other  forms  of 
melancholy.  Its  sunshine  is  a  mockery :  its  beautiful 
scenery  a  deceit:,  the  soothingness  of  its  domestic  affec- 
tions a  snare.  Its  life  is  an  incessant  death.  We  have 
no  right  to  smile  at  anything.  The  world  is  so  dark  that 
it  is  even  a  perpetual  partial  eclipse  of  God.  If  the  pre- 
sent is  miserable,  let  us  delay  upon  it;  for  in  misery  we 
shall  find  food  for  our  souls.  If  it  is  joyous,  let  us  rush 
from  it  into  the  forebodings  of  a  future,  when  all  this  world 
and  the  fashion  of  it  will  be  burned  up  with  fire.  Let 
us  speak  low  lest  the  devil  hear  us,  and  use  his  know- 
ledge to  our  destruction.  Let  us  live  as  ancient  monarchs 
lived,  in  daily  fear  of  poison  in  every  dish.  A  funeral 
on  a  wet  day  in  a  disconsolate  churchyard,  this  is  the 
type  of  the  minds  who  take  this  view. 

The  other  view  is  the  very  opposite  of  all  this.  It  is 
the  bright  view.  Those  who  take  it  see  all  creation 
lying  before  them  with  the  lustre  of  God's  benediction 
on  it.  It  is  the  earth  on  which  Jesus  was  born,  and 
where  Mary  lived.  They  marvel  at  the  number  of  ex- 
quisite pleasures  with  which  it  is  strewn,  so  very  few  of 
which  comparatively  are  sins.  The  innocent  attach- 
ments of  earthly  love  are  to  such  men  helps  to  love 
God  better.  Natural  beauty  supernaturalizes  their 
minds.  The  sunshine  makes  them  better  men.  God's 
perfections  are  seen  everywhere  written  in  hieroglyphics 


THE  WOULD.  417 

over  the  world.  Kindness  is  so  abundant,  nobility  of 
heart  so  plentiful,  the  joys  of  home  so  pure  yet  so 
attractive,  the  successes  of  the  Gospel  so  infinitely  con- 
doling, all  things  in  fact  so  much  better  on  trial  than 
they  seemeJ,  that  the  world  appears  a  happy  place,  and 
mi-sing  but  a  little,  so  little  it  is  sad  to  think  how- 
little,  of  being  a  holy  place  also,  holy  from  the  very 
abundance  of  its  pure  happiness.  At  every  turn  there 
are  radiant  fountains  of  joy  leaping  up  to  meet  us. 
Each  day,  like  the  cystus,  has  a  thousand  new  blos- 
soms to  show ;  it  lays  them  down  when  evening  comes, 
and  the  next  morning  it  has  as  gay  a  show  of  flowers  as 
ever.  Even  adverse  things  are  wonderfully  tempered 
in  the  present,  while  in  the  past  they  have  such  a 
pathetic  golden  light  upon  them,  that  the  memory  of 
them  is  one  of  our  best  treasures,  and  we  would  not  for 
worlds  have  missed  the  suffering  of  them  ;  and  as  to  any 
evil  in  the  future,  there  is  such  an  inextinguishable  li^ht 
of  joy  within  us,  that  we  simply  disbelieve  it.  The 
clouds  fly  before  us  as  we  go.  Music  sounds  about  our 
path.  And  as  to  cares,  they  find  themselves  so  little  at- 
home  with  us,  that  when  we  come  to  the  night  "they 
fold  up  their  tents  like  the  Arabs,  and  as  silently  steal 
away." 

St.  Bernard  may  be  called  the  prophet  of  the  first 
view:  St.  Francis  of  Sales  of  the  second.  The  first 
seems  more  safe  for  human  presumption;  the  second 
more  cheering  to  discouragement.  One  leads  through 
holy  fear  to  love  ;  the  other  through  holy  love  to  fear. 
The  one  disenchants  more  from  the  world ;  the  other 
enchants  us  more  with  God.  The  one  su>dues;  the 
other  gives  elasticity.  The  one  seems  more  admoni- 
tory to  man  ;  the  other  more  honourable  to  God.   Both 

can  make  6aiats;  but  saints  of  different  kinds      LioLk 
27   -J- 


418  THE  WOULD. 

are  true ;  yet  both  are  untrue.    Eoth  are  true  as  faj? 
as  they  go,  and  both  are  untrue  when  they  exclude  the 
other.     They  are  partial  views;  and  one  is  more  true 
to  a  man  than  the  other,  because  it  is  more  suitable  for 
his  character  and  temper  to  dwell  upon  what  is  promi- 
nently dark,  or  prominently  bright,  as  the  case  may 
be.     The  great  thing  is,  whichever  view   we  take,  to 
have  it  clearly  before  us  and  keep  to  it  consistently, 
because  of  the  irresistible  influence  which  these  view3 
exercise  upon  the  spiritual  life.     They  make  men  pray 
differently,  and  act  differently  in  their  secret  relations 
with   God.     They   foster  different  graces.     They  give 
birth    to   different   vocations.       They   supply   differ,  nt 
motives.     The  subjects  for  meditation,  the  subjects  for 
particular  examination  of  conscience,  have  to  do  with 
the   dark   or  bright  view  men  habitually  take  of  thd 
world.     The  question  between  an  active  or  a  contem- 
plative life  is  often  decided  by  them.     They  have  each 
their  own  class  of  temptations,  and  their  own  rocks  on 
which  they  may  strike  and  go  down.      They  have  each 
also  their  own  graces,  their  own  beauties,   their  own 
attractions,  their  own  blessings,  and   their  own  short 
roads  to  heaven.      The  strange  thing  is  that  no  one 
seems  to  be  able  to  take  in  impartially  the  whole  viefT 
of  the  world,  the  true  view,  the  bright  and  dark  together. 
Intellectually   they  may   do  so ;  bub  practically   they 
must  lean  either  to  the  dark  or  bright,  exaggerate  their 
own  view,  and  do  the  other  view  injustice.    No  mind 
leaves  things  uncoloured.     It  is  our  necessity ;  we  can- 
not help  ourselves.    The  grand  thing  is  to  turn  it  all 
to  God,   and  to    begin    straightway  to  manufacture 
heavenly  love  both  out  of  our  darkness  and  our  light. 

It  is  dangerous  to  talk  of  general  rules  in  such  sub- 
ject  matters.     But    as  upon  the  whole  we  find  the 


TEE  WORLD.  410 

darker  view  taken  by  cloistered  saints,  and  the  brighter 
view  by  secular  saints,  it  may  not  be  an  error  to  sup- 
pose that  the  brighter  view  of  the  world  is  the  best  for 
those  who  live  in  the   world.      The   dark   view   may 
readily  become  gloomy,  and  gloom  leads  to  inaction, 
to  concentration  upon  self,  to  the  judging  of  others, 
to  a  discontentment  with  the  state  of  things  around 
us;  and  the  fruit  of  all  this  is  pride,  sourness,  want  of 
zeal,   and  self-righteousness.     Men   with   a   frustrated 
vocation  to  religion,  and  living  in  the  world,  where  they 
have  no  right   to   be,    are   mostly   uncharitable   men. 
Reformers,  good  and  bad,  have  for  the  most  part  em- 
anated from  the  cloister.     Luther  was  an  Augustinian  : 
Savonarola  a  Dominican.     A  monk  has  beautiful  ex- 
amples   of    the  highest  virtue  constantly  before  him, 
which  not  only  urge  him  on  in  his  heroic  love  of  God, 
but  also  counteract  what  there  might  be  depressing  or 
unnerving  in  his  melancholy  view  of  the  world.     To 
Lim  in  his  circumstances  it  is  a  powerful  stimulus  to 
sanctity.     But  it  would  require  very  peculiar  circum- 
stances indeed   to  make  it  such  to  persons  aiming  at 
perfection  in  the  world.     They  are   good;  they  lovo 
God ;  they  frequent  the  Sacraments ;  they  make  mental 
prayer;   they  practice    voluntary  mortifications;    they 
live  under  spiritual  direction ;  their  interests  and  tastes 
are  in  B]  iritual  things.     Yet  for  all  this  they  enjoy  the 
world.     Many  of  its  blameless  pleasures  are  real  plea- 
sures to  them.     They  love  many  persons,  and  many 
persons  love  them.      Their  home-circle  is  bright  and 
tenler;  and  if  it  does  not  lead  to  God,  there   is    no 
appearance  of  its  leading  away  from  Ilim.     Now  what 
will   happen   if  we   force   them  to  believe  that  all   i* 
misery  around  them,  and  that  they  ought  to  be  misera- 
ble themselves,  and  that  it  is  very  imperfect  of  tlitm 


420  THE  WORLD. 

not  to  be  so  ?  The  fact  is,  they  are  not  miserable,  and 
they  cannot  see  why  they  should  be  so:  and  moreover 
they  actually  cannot  be  miserable,  even  if  they  try. 
Consequently  if  we  persist  in  forcing  upon  them  a  view 
which  does  not  suit  them,  and  is  against  the  grain, 
they  either  become  perplexed  and  scrupulous,  seeing 
sin  where  there  is  no  sin,  and  believing  the  detection 
of  sin  to  be  the  highest  spiritual  discernment,  and  so 
farewell  to  their  serving  God  for  love ;  or  they  start 
away  from  a  devout  life  altogether,  in  disgust  and  im- 
patience, as  an  unreality,  which  is  based  upon  a  false 
theory,  and  so  worth  nothing  at  all,  or  as  an  inflated 
pedantic  imposture,  which  even  those  who  talk  big 
about  it  do  not  themselves  believe.  Then,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  number  of  things  which  are  sinful  is  much 
less  than  this  view  would  lead  us  to  suppose ;  and  a 
man  aiming  at  perfection  in  the  world  is  much  more 
exposed  than  others  to  occasions  of  sin.  Indeed  this 
is  one  of  his  chief  difficulties,  the  difficulty  which  in  all 
ages  has  so  blessedly  filled  the  cloisters  and  recruited 
the  congregations  of  apostolic  men.  But  this  very 
fact  makes  any  exaggeration  of  the  matter  extremely- 
dangerous,  as  both  discouraging  and  unsettling ;  and 
every  one  knows  that  in  the  world,  where  there  are 
neither  rules  nor  vows,  discouragement  and  unsettle- 
ment  are  the  two  most  fatal  enemies  of  the  spiritual 
life.  The  bright  view  is  doubtless  a  better  basis  for 
perfection  in  the  world.  Meanwhile  it  must  guard 
itself  against  laxity,  and  love  of  pleasure,  and  an  inade- 
quate notion  of  sin,  as  much  as  the  darker  view  musfc 
Bhun  discouragement,  self-exaltation,  and  uncharitable- 
ness,  to  which  of  its  own  nature  it  is  prone.  The  dark 
view  must  not  be  querulous  with  God,  nor  the  bright 
view  make  too  free  with  His  perfections. 


THE  WORLp.  421 

Whatever  view  we  take  of  the  world,  we  must  be 
upon   our   guard   against   its    spirit.      Of   that   spirit' 
Christians  can  have  but   one    view.      Inspiration   has 
fixed  it  for  ever  ;  it  is  the  enemy  of  God.     No  cloisters 
can  hope  to  keep  it  out ;  for  it  has  the  gift  of  subtlety. 
There   is  air  enough  in  one  heart  for  it  to  live,  and 
thrive   amaziDgly.      But   much   more   are   those   who 
live   in   the   world  exposed  to  its  dangers.      It  looks 
eo  moral,  and  sometimes,    but  not  often,  even  gene- 
rous,  in    order    to    deceive    us.      It   can   talk   most 
reasonably  and  well.     It  can  praise  religion,  and  take 
its  side,  though  there  is   always   an   ulterior   purpose 
in  view.     We  see  its  influence  in  society.     Faith   deci- 
phers it  for  us  there.       We  behold  a  system  of  pro- 
prieties  with   no  self-denial   in   them,    a    number   of 
axioms  of  doubtful  morality  gaining  ground  and  pass- 
ing current,  a  humility  which  consists  in   our   ruling 
ourselves  by  the  opinions  of  others,  an  inventiveness  of 
amusements  which   bewilder  our  notions  of  right  and 
wrong;  and  in  all  this  we  can  prophecy  evil  an  J  sus- 
pect dangers,  while  it  is  hard  for  us  to  name  the  evil 
and  to  put  our  finger  on  the  danger.     When  we  look 
at  people  outside  the  Church,  we  see  how  insinuatingly 
worldliness  prevents  their   coming  into  it.      We   can 
see  clearly,  what  the  sufferers  themselves  cannot  see  at 
all.     AVe  can  watch  its  influence  on  sinners,  how  art- 
fully it  entices  them  into  the  deep  places,  how  strongly 
it  holds  them  down,  how  cleverly  it  throws  suspicion 
upon  the  advances  and  offers  of  grace,  how  variously 
it  contrives  delays,  and  when  it  fails,  how  hypocriti- 
cally it  can  rejoice  in  a  man's  conversion,  how  success- 
fully it  can  lay  hold  of  his  fresh  vigour  and  high  spirits, 
and  how  mercilessly  it  can  lead  him   backwards   and 
blindfold  into  a  relapse  I     But  the  sinner  sees  nothing 


422  THE  -WORLD. 

of  this  himself.    If  if;  were  told  him,  it  would  sound  in 
his  ears  as  a  romance. 

We  can  trace  the  influence  of  worldliness  upon  pious 
people.     Their  frequentation  of  the  sacraments,  their 
church-going,  their  alms-giving,  their  interest  in  catholic 
plans,  contrast  strangely  with  their  anxiety  to  get  into 
society,  with  their  hankering  after  great  people,  with 
their  excitement  about  marriages,  with  the  perpetual 
running  of  their  conversation  on  connections,  wealth, 
influence  and  the  like,  and  their  unconscious  but  almost 
gross  respect  for  those  who  are  very  much  richer  than 
themselves,   or  very    much    higher   than   themselves. 
It    would   never   do   for   them   to    sit  for    a  picture 
of  catholic   devotion.      Yet   they  do  not  see  all  this, 
and  they  are   really   full    of   God,  always   talking   of 
Him,  always  planning  for  Him,  always  fidgetty  about 
His  glory.     Sometimes  a  step  further  is  taken,  and  wa 
see  a  most  portentous  union  of  piety  and  worldliness, 
really  as  if  one  person  were  two  persons,  one  person  in 
church,  and  another  person  out  of  church,  one  person 
with  priest  and   religious,  and   another   person   witli 
worldly  company.    These  people  make  the  oddest  com- 
pensations to  themselves  for  their  pious  self-denials,  and 
again  with  such  grotesque  earnestness   penance    their 
worldliness  in  revenge  for  its  inroads  upon  their  piety, 
that  they  remind  us  of  the   stories  protestants  tell  us 
of  the  Italian  bravos,  who,  before  they  commit  a  murder, 
most  devoutly  recommend   it   to  the  Madonna.     Yet 
God  and  the  world  keep  the  peace  so  unbrokenly   ia 
their  hearts,  that  they  have  hardly  a  suspicion  of  the 
incongruous  appearance,  they  present  to  others,  still  less 
of  the   horrible  reality   of    their    spiritual  condition. 
Now  if  we  can  see  all  this  in  others,  is  it  at  all  likely 
that  we  are  free  from  it  ourselves  ?    Depend  upon  it 


TEffi  WOULD.  423 

there  is  no  freedom  but  in  excessive  fear,  no  security 
but  in  a  weary  vigilance  !  It  is  heavy  work  always  to 
be  keeping  guard.  But  there  is  no  sleep  in  the  enemy's 
camp,  and  we  are  in  a  war  which  knows  neither  peace 
nor  truce.  The  night  is  both  cold  and  long,  and  if 
divine  love  keeps  us  not  awake,  what  else  is  there  that 
will? 

It  may  very  naturally  be  now  objected  that  the  con- 
clusion of  this  chapter  tends  to  destroy  the  conclusion 
of  the  last,  that  if  worldliness  accounts  for  the  widely 
spread  denial  of  those  relations  of  Creator  and  creature 
which  have  been  shown  to  be  true,  so  it  will  not  allow 
lis  to  suppose  that  the  majority  of  Catholics  are  saved, 
when  worldliness  is  at  once  so  universal,  and  so  deadly 
to  the  60ul.     But  this  by  no  means  follows.     What 
Las  been  said  of  the  obtrusiveness  of  evil  and  the  hidden- 
ness  of  good,  and  of  the  graces  which  visit  old  age, 
sickness,  and  death,  applies  as  well  to  worldliness  as  to 
sin.    No!  the  conclusion,  which  might  seem  to  follow 
from  this  doctrine  of  worldliness,  would  be,  that  very 
far  from  a  majority  of  the  rich  among  catholics  would 
be  saved.     But  the  rich  are  a  mere  handful  compared 
to  the  multitudinous  poor.     So  that,  even  allowing  the 
6tern  conclusion  to  be  drawn  that  very  few  rich  persona 
are  saved,  even  among  catholics,  the  conclusion  of  the 
preceding    chapter    would    remain    unshaken.     Many 
wi  iters  have  taken  this  startling  view.     Lacordaire,  in 
making  up  his  majority  of  the  saved,  lays  the  chief 
stress  on  children,  women,  and  the  countless  poor.* 
Bossuet,  commenting  on  the  words  of  the  seventy-first 
psalm,  He  shall  judge  the  poor  of  the  people  and  He 
shall  save  the  children  of  the  poor,  draws  a  picture 
similar  to  that  of  Lacordaire.f    Fromond,  in  his  com- 
•  Conferences,  It.  178,  et  seqq.  t  (Euvres,  vii.  443. 


424  TEE  WOULD. 

mentary  on  the  catholic  epistles,  enters  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  the  number  of  the  saved  when  he  is  explaining 
the  thirteenth  verse  of  the  second  chapter  of  St.  James, 
and  one  of  the  arguments  "which  he  brings  forward  in 
support  of  the  more  gloomy  view  is,  that  u  although 
perhaps  the  majority  of  the  faithful  do  not  die  without 
the  sacrament   of   penance,  yet  very  many  worldly 
people  (plerique  mundani)  do  not  receive  the  fruit  of 
the  sacrament ;"  and  the  reason  he  gives  for  this  opinion 
is,  that  their  appreciation  of  riches,  honours,  pleasures, 
and  other  earthly  goods  is  too  high  and  fixed  for  their 
sorrow  for  sin  easily  to  rise  to  that  appreciation  of  its 
malignity,  which  theology  requires  even  in  the  adequate 
attrition  for  absolution.*    Palafox  also,  in  his  book  on 
Devotion  to  St.  Peter,  teaches  the  same  doctrine  in  his 
comparison  of  the  prodigal  son,  and  the  young  man  who 
went    away    sorrowful.     It    was    his  appreciation  of 
riches  which  hindered  his  appreciation  of  God,  and  it 
was  the  prodigal's  freedom  from  this  which  on  the  other 
hand  facilitated  his  conversion.f    There  is  no  doubt 
that  our  Lord's  woes  pronounced  upon  the  rich  are 
among  the  most  painful  and  terrific  mysteries  of  the 
Gospel,  and  should  drive  rich  men  into  that  facile, 
prompt,  various,  unasked,  abundant,  and  self-denying 
almsgiving  for  the  love  of  God,  in  which  alone  their 
safety  consists.     But,  so  far  as  the  present  question  is 
concerned,  I  express  no  opinion  as  to  whether  a  very 
small  minority  of  rich  catholics  are  saved;  I  do  not 
know  enough  of  the  world  to  form  a  judgment,  and  my 
little  experience  of  the  rich  would  go  the  other  way:  I 
only  say  that  even  if  this  melancholy  belief  be  true,  it  by 

*  Migne,  Cursus  Sacrse  Scripturae,  Tom.  xxv.  col.  683. 
t  Pala/ox,  Eiccllenciaa  do  Sail  P«uiO,  lib.  ui.  cap.  9. 


THE  WORLD.  425 

no  means  destroys  the  previous  conclusion  that  the 
numerical  majority  of  catholics  are  saved. 

But  to  conclude,  there  are.  certain  things  "which  it  is 
important  to  note  with  regard  to  worldliness,  and  which 
cannot  be  too  often  repeated.  The  first  is,  that  even 
spiritual  persons  for  the  most  part  greatly  under-estimate 
its  danger.  They  have  not  a  sufficiently  intelligent 
belief  in  its  universality,  in  its  subtlety,  in  its  power  of 
combining  with  good  in  the  most  imperceptible  quan- 
tities, and  then  spoiling  it,  or  in  its  peculiar  aptness  for 
fixing  itself  just  upon  the  very  persons  who  consider 
themselves  decidedly  free  from  it.  Spiritual  discernment 
is  a  rare  gift,  and  one  which  belongs  only  to  those  whose 
hearts  are  all  for  God.  It  is  the  great  art  of  the 
world  to  persuade  men  that  it  is  not  so  dangerous  as  it 
is  described,  and  that  with  monks  it  is  a  sort  of  pious 
fashion  to  abuse  the  world,  while  with  preachers  it 
is  simply  an  affair  of  rhetoric.  This  persuasion  is  its 
triumph.  Nothing  more  is  needed.  "When  you  have 
nnder-estimated  its  dangers,  you  are  already  its  vic- 
tim. 

In  the  second  place,  as  men  are  very  apt  not  to  know 
worldliness  even  when  they  see  it,  and  as  it  is  not  an 
easy  matter  always  to  be  paying  attention  to  the  atmos- 
phere we  breathe,  it  is  of  great  importance  to  have  well- 
ascertained  principles.  It  is  astonishing  how  few  men 
are  in  possession  of  such.  An  almost  incredible  amount 
of  excellent  effort  comes  to  nothing  great,  because  it  is 
at  random,  and  by  fits  and  starts,  and  operating  incon- 
sistently with  its  antecedents.  Tho  really  powerful 
man  in  the  world  is  the  consistent  man,  tho  man  of 
ascertained  principles  and  of  adjusted  views.  Tho 
world,  like  a  suspicious  potentate,  is  always  proposing 
concordats.    "\Vc  are  atked  first  for  one  compromise, 


426  THE  WORLD 

then  for  another.    We  do  not  know  when  we  havo 
passed  the  line  which  involved  a  principle,  and  so  we 
discover,  that  we  have  committed  ourselves  to  some- 
thing, in  which  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  keep  our  word 
without    surrendering    our    independence    altogether. 
Now  with  ascertained  principles  we  have  settled  ail  this 
at  the  outset.    Even  when  we  get  beyond  the  extent  of 
our  knowledge,  or  the  sphere  of  our  experience,  we 
know  what  to  suspect  and  where  to  be  upon  our  guard. 
Our  instincts  are   right,  and,  what  is  practically  of 
greater  importance,  they  are  consistent  also.     Thus  we 
do  not  fall  into  the  world's  power,  and  are  never  taken 
unawares,  and  have  not  to  give  offence  by  having  to 
retrace  our  steps.    Thus  when  we  change  our  state  of 
life,  or  enter  upon  a  new  department  of  duty,  or  come 
to  a  crisis  in  life,  our  relations  with  the  world  are  more 
or  less  altered ;  and  if  we  have  then  to  hesitate  and 
linger,  settling  our  future  mode  of  operations  and  map- 
ping out  the  country  before  us,  because  we  have  no 
ascertained  princples,  every  step  we  take,  (and  we  can- 
not stand  still,  this  is  not  a  world  for  that  work,)  we  are 
putting  on  record  some  precedent  against  ourselves. 
An  inconsistent  great  man  is  an  impotent  creature  in 
practical  matters,  while  a  consistent  moderate  man  does 
the  work  of  a  great  one.     Above  all,  a  man  should  have 
ascertained  principles  of  practical  religion,  if  religion 
is  to  be  the  business  of  his  life.    It  is  deplorable 
for  the  cause  of  God  on  earth,  that  such  men  are  so 
few. 

In  the  third  place,  if  ascertained  principles  are  of 
'such  importance  to  us  in  this  respect,  and  if  the  power 
of  our  faith  depends  materially  either  on  its  simplicity 
or  its  intelligence,  and  if  our  faith  is  "the  victory 
which  overcometh  the  world,"  it  is  of  great  consequence 


THE  WORLD.  427 

that  we  should  know  and  study  our  religion  well.     In 
these  days  there  is  an  immense  amount  of  information, 
floating  in  society,  regarding  the  controversies  of  the 
Church  and  the  world.     They  are  now  daily  coming 
more  into  collision,  in  questions  of  politics,  in  systems 
of  beneficence,  in  the  statistics  of  crime,  in  the  doctrines 
of  progress,  in  the  discoveries  of  science,  in  the  quarrels 
of  the  metaphysical  schools,  and  in  the  new  shapes  of 
old  controversies  between  the  Church  and  the  dissident 
sects  around  her.     The  world  has  a  power  and  a  pur- 
chase in  the  anti-church  side  of  all  these  questions ;  and 
it  is  so  tempting  to  be  moderate,  so  pleasant  to  yield, 
eo  hard  to  prove,  so  weary  to  argue,  so  unnatural  to 
confess  our  own  ignorance,  that  an  educated  modern 
catholic  who  does  not  study  the  doctrines  of  his  religion, 
as  carefully  as  the  subject-matter  of  his  profession,  wiii 
hardly  escape  betraying  God  sometimes,  and  getting  on 
the  wrong  side  without  intending  it.     Even  a  study  of 
theology,    at  least   to  some  extent,  is  of  considerable 
utility,  in  this  particular  light,  as  a  safeguard  against 
worldliness.     It  is  proverbial  that  a  little  knowledge  is 
a  dangerous  thing  ;  but  this  is  less  true  of  theology  than 
it  is  of  any  other  science,  because  the  least  acquaintance 
with  it  deepens  our  view  of  our  own  ignorance,  and  it 
breathes  such  an  odour  of  God  that  intellectual  bashful- 
Dess  would  seem  to  be  its  special  gift,  increasing  as  our 
studies  penetrate  nearer   and  nearer   to  those  divine 
abysses,  into  which  knowledge  may  not  descend  until 
it  has  been  metamorphosed  into  love.    A  man,  who  has 
finished  his  education    in  these  days  without   having 
acquired  a  profound  intellectual  respect  for  his  religion, 
is  the  most  likely  of  all  men  to  become  the  prey  of  an 
unbelieving  and  ungodly  world,  and  to  betray  his  Lord 
without  intending  it,  and  then  to  grow  angry,  and  turn 


428  THE  WORLD. 

away  in  proud  dislike  from  Him  whom  he  has  thus 
betrayed. 

In  the  last  place,  it  is  honestly  to  be  confessed,  that 
all  these  things  do  but  form  an  armour  against  the  spirit 
of  the  world.  They  are  not  a  victory  over  it.  More- 
over it  is  an  armour  which  is  by  no  means  invulnerable. 
The  weight  of  the  arms  and  the  weariness  of  the  fight 
have  laid  many  a  warrior  low  from  whom  no  blood 
had  flowed,  but  whose  very  bones  the  heavy  fall  had 
cruelly  broken.  Many  a  spear,  that  could  not  penetrate 
the  cunning  joints  of  the  suit  of  mail,  has  unseated  the 
rider,  and  left  him  lifeless  beneath  his  charger's  feet. 
So  all  these  helps,  which  have  been  here  suggested,  are 
not  infallible ;  nay,  they  are  but  auxiliaries  for  a  season, 
and  for  all  their  worth,  the  world  may,  and  most  likely 
will,  if  we  have  no  other  resources,  take  us  captive  in 
the  end.  There  is  no  redemption  for  the  creature  but 
in  the  service  of  the  Creator.  There  is  no  power  to 
counteract  the  manifold  spirit  of  evil  but  one,  and  that 
is  the  desire  of  God,  the  craving  to  see  His  face,  the 
yearning  for  His  beauty.  There  is  no  specific  against 
worldliness  but  G;d. 


42? 


CHAPTER  IV. 


OUR  OWN  GOD. 


Aio  S?j  xx)  tig  etiirov  t~-({TTea.TTxi  ra,  ffCf^rxvrK^  u.tr%iTa)  rw  irc$u  xen 

S.  Basil. 

The  Creator  is  the  creature's  home.  Neither  spirit 
of  angel  nor  soul  of  man  can  rest  short  of  God.  They 
can  anchor  nowhere  save  in  the  capacious  harbour  of 
His  infinite  perfections.  All  things  teach  us  this  beau- 
tiful truth*  All  things  that  find  us  wandering  lead  us 
home  again,  to  the  Bosom  of  our  Eternal  Father.  The 
three  distinct  orders  of  nature,  grace,  and  glory,  if  the 
two  last  may  indeed  be  called  distinct,  all  in  their  own 
respective  ways,  at  once  teach  us  this  comforting  and 
saving  truth,  and  help  us  also  to  practice  what  they 
teach.  The  natural  joy  of  beautiful  scenery,  the  strong 
grace  of  Christian  holiness,  and  the  thrill  of  glory  which 
passes  through  our  souls  from  the  unveiled  Face  of  God, 
all,  in  degrees  almost  infinitely  apart,  draw  us  home  to 
God,  or  keep  us  there.  God  is  our  Last  End  as  well  as 
our  First  Cause.  0  that  the  day  were  come  when  we 
shall  be  securely  at  His  Feet  for  ever! 

God  is  included  in  the  idea  of  creation  as  our  Last 
End  as  well  as  our  First  Cause.  It  is  as  our  Creator 
that  He  is  both  the  one  and  the  other.  We  have  seen 
that  creation  was  simply  love,  a  love  which  called  our 
natures  out  of  nothing,  a  love  which  gave  them  all  that 
was  due  to  them,  a  love  which  gave  them  grace  which 
was  not  due  for  them,  a  love  which  in  matter  of  fact 


430  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

destined  them  to  a  glory  which  is  far  beyond  our  natu- 
ral capacities.  All  the  three  orders  of  nature,  grace, 
and  glory  were  represented  in  the  act  of  creation,  nature 
from  the  very  necessity  of  the  case,  grace  because  as  a 
matter  of  fact  God  created  both  angels  and  men  in  a 
state  of  grace,*  glory  because  it  was  for  His  glory  that 
we  were  necessarily  created,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in 
the  exuberant  goodness  of  His  decrees,  for  the  special, 
but  not  necessary,  glory  of  the  Beatific  Vision. 

The  angels  were  created  all  at  once,  and  because  of 
their  excellent  perfections,  and  especially  the  perfect 
knowledge  which  they  had  of  themselves,  they  rapidly 
exercised  their  free  will,  completed  the  course  of  their 
probation,  and  entered  into  the  rest  and  enjoyment  of 
the  Creator's  beauty.  Men  are  created  slowly  and  by 
successive  generations,  and  from  the  great  inferiority  of 
their  rational  nature  to  the  vast  intelligences  of  the 
angels,  they  require  the  revolution  of  many  centuries 
before  their  numbers  are  completed,  their  destinies  ful- 
filled, and  the  whole  of  the  elect  enter  into  the  everlast- 
ing joy  of  God.  The  world  of  men  is  a  world  of  slower 
rotation.  Both  these  creations  of  angels  and  men  were 
created  simply  for  God's  own  glory ;  but  His  glory  was 
the  creature's  bliss,  because  His  glory  was  to  have 
rational  children  who  should  be  like  Himself  and  be 
made  participators  of  His  beatitude.  But  as  we  cannot 
be  participators  of  His  joy  by  any  natural  beatitude, 
however  exquisite  and  satisfying,  and  as  His  very  first 
intention  in  creation  was  that  we  should  participate  in 
His  own  beatitude,  it  follows  that  His  very  first  inten- 
tion in  creation  already  involved  both  grace  and  glory  j 
and  this  is  the  explanation  of  the  beautiful  and  touching 

*  Throughout  the  whole  Treatise  the  opinion  of  St.  Bonaventure  as  to  the 
creation  of  the  angels  has  been  assumed  to  he  incorrect. 


OUR  OWN  GOD.  431 

nivstery  of  our  being  created  in  a  state  of  grace  origin- 
ally. So  nature  involved  grace,  not  necessarily,  but  in 
the  designs  of  creative  love,  and  grace  looked  on  to 
glory,  and  prophecied  of  it  to  free-will,  and  more  than 
prophecied  of  it,  for  it  was  the  capacity  of  glory  and  its 
beginning. 

Because  God  is  infinitely  good  and  infinitely  perfect, 
He  is  by  His  nature,  so  to  speak,  bent  upon  the  com- 
munication  of  Himself;   and   this  communication   of 
Himself  is,  as  theologians  tell  us,  twofold,  a  natural 
communication,  and  a  free  communication.     The  natu- 
ral one,  as  it  is  altogether  necessary,  is  eternal.     It  is 
that  by  which  the  Father  communicates  to  the  Son  His 
whole  essence,  power,  wisdom,  goodness,  and  beatitude, 
and  the  Father  and  the  Son  to  the  eternally  proceeding 
Spirit.     It  takes  place  in  the  production  of  the  Word 
through  the  intellect,  and  of  the  Spirit  through  the  will ; 
and  each  of  these  processions  is  so  perfect  and  full,  that 
by  it  the  whole  good,  which  is  communicated,  is  as  per- 
fectly possessed  by  Him  who  receives  as  by  Him  who 
communicates  it.    The  free  communication  of  God  is 
temporal,  and  takes  place  in  creation,  and  creation  is  in 
order  to  it,  and  it  takes  place  first,  and  foremost,  and 
eminently,  in  the  Hypostatic  Union,  and  then  in  the 
gifts  of  grace  and  glory ;  and  God's  communication  of 
Himself,  which  in  the  act  of  creation  was  not  superna- 
tural, was  with  a  view  to  what  was  supernatural,  and 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  not  disjoined  from  it  in  act.    To 
this,  therefore,  says  Lessius,  did  God  of  Himself  incline, 
that  is,  of  His  own  goodness,  setting  aside  all  merit  and 
all  necessity  of  the  creature.   This  communication  begins 
in  this  life  by  the  gifts  of  grace,  especially  faith,  hope, 
and  charity ;  by  which  virtues  we  are  not  only  made 
like  to  God,  but  God  also  is  united  to  us.    It  is  per- 


432  OUR  OWN  GOD, 

fected  however  in  the  next  life  by  the  gifts  of  glory, 
namely,  the  light  of  glory,  the  vision  of  the  Divinity, 
beatific  love,  and  beatific  joy.  For  by  these  we  attain 
our  highest  possible  similitude  to  God,  and  become  per- 
fectly the  sons  of  God,  and  deiform,  shining  like  the 
Divinity,  and  exhibiting  in  ourselves  the  most  excellent 
image  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  For  by  the  light  of  glory 
we  are  made  like  the  Father ;  by  the  vision  of  the 
divine  Essence  and  divine  Persons  we  become  like  tho 
Son  ;  by  beatific  love  we  are  made  like  the  Holy  Ghost ; 
by  joy  we  become  like  the  Godhead  in  beatitude,  and 
the  participation  of  the  divine  beatitude  is  completed  ia 
us.* 

When  we  speak  of  God's  glory  we  may  mean  one  or 
more  of  four  things.  First  of  all,  His  glory  may  be 
either  intrinsic  or  external;  and  then  each  of  those  may 
be  of  two  kinds  also.  God's  own  excellence,  His  own 
beauty,  the  infinity  of  His  perfections  in  Himself,  is  as 
it  were  the  objective  glory  of  God,  which  is  intrinsic  to 
Himself;  whereas  His  own  knowledge  of  Himself,  His 
own  love  of  Himself,  and  His  own  joy  in  Himself,  which 
are  also  intrinsic,  are  what  theology  terms  His  formal 
glory.  The  beauty  of  creation,  the  perfections  of  crea- 
tures, their  loveliness,  their  number,  their  adaptations, 
even  their  colour  and  form,  are  the  external  glory  of 
God,  represented  objectively,  whereas  the  knowledge  of 
Him,  the  love  of  Him,  and  the  joy  in  Him,  which  His 
rational  creatures  have,  is  His  formal  external  glory. 
It  is  necessary  to  put  these  hard  words  together  in  order 
to  understand  the  practical  conclusions  to  which  we 
shall  be  coming  presently. 

Now  we  say  that  God  is  necessitated  to  do  everything 
for  His  own  glory,  and  that  through  the  creation  of  the 

*  Lessiua  de  Perfect.  Divin.  lib.  xiv. 


OTJR  OWN  GOD.  433 

world  was  perfectly  free,  yet,  granting  that  it  was  to  be 
created  by  God,  it  must  of  necessity  be  created  for  His 
glory.     This  is  almost  venturing  to  say  that  He  could 
not  help  Himself,  at  least  as  to  the  end  for  which  He 
created.     But  oh  I  what  joy  the  creature  will  find  at  last 
ill  this  very  necessity,  which  God  is  under,  of  doing 
everything  for  His  own  glory  !     That  God  has  created 
the  world  is  a  fact.     It  is  contradictory  not  to  His  wis- 
dom only,  but  to  every  one  of  His  perfections,  that  He 
should  have  created  it  without  an  object  at  all.     It  is 
impossible  to  Him,  as  God,  to  have  any  other  end  but 
Himself.     It  is  contrary  to  the  plenitude  of  His  self- 
sufficiency,  that  He  should  have  created  it  in  order  to 
gain  from  it  conveniences  which  He  has  not  now,  or 
joys  which  He  does  not  already  possess;  for  these  are 
intrinsic  to  Himself.     But  it  is  possible  for  Him  to  have 
a  glory  extrinsic  to  Himself,  over  and  above  that  which 
is  intrinsic.     On  the  other  hand,  it  is  impossible  for 
Him  to  have  anything  else  extrinsic  to  Himself,  which 
creation  could  give  Him,  except  glory.    Even  then  the 
glory  is  not  necessary  to  Him,  and  does  not  make  Him 
more  blessed  or  more  self- sufficient  than  He  was;  at 
best  it  is  only  congruous  to  His  divine  Majesty  to  have 
it.     Thus  it  is  that  God  is  necessitated  to  do  all  things 
for  His  own  glory.     He  is  limited  to  this  by  the  very 
plenitude  of  His  perfections.     As  nothing  exists  in  the 
world  without  the  influx  of  His  omnipresence,  support- 
ing it  and  keeping  it  above  the  abyss  of  nothingness,  into 
which  of  itself  it  is  falling  back  evermore,  so  also  nothing 
exists  in  the  world,  which  is  not  involved  in  and  de- 
pending upon  God's  glory.     Even  the  permissions  of  sin 
glorify  Him,  for  without  them  according  to  the  present 
laws  the  wills  of  His  creatures  would  not  be  free. 

While  God  was  thus  under  the  necessity  of  creating 

28  f 


434  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

all  tilings  for  His  glory,  if  He  created  at  all,  much  more 
is  the  creature  under  the  necessity  of  glorifying  God  in 
all   things.     But  it  was  not  necessary  for  God  to  raise 
the  creature  to  the  special  glory  of  the  Beatific  Vision. 
It  was  not  due  to  his  nature,  not  to  the  highest  angelic 
nature.     It   was   beyond  it;  and  it  was  beyond  it,  not 
in  degree  only,  but  in  kind  also.     It  belonged  to  another 
order  than  that  of  nature.     It  was  superadded  to  na- 
ture.    Nature  had  to   receive   another  order,   that  of 
grace,  before  it  could  be  capable  of  the  third  order,  that 
of  glory.     Wonderful  things  had  to  be  done  to  it,  in 
order  to  habilitate  it  for  such  a  possibility  as  the  sight 
of  God.     But  the  remarkable  thing  is,  that  these  things 
were  done  in  the  act  of  creation.     The  orders  both  of 
nature  and  of  grace  started  in  that  one  act  of  divine 
benignity.     It  was  sin  only,  which  separated  what  God 
had  put  together.     The  rebellious  angels  sinned,  and  so 
lost  their  primal  grace,  and  having  no  fresh  trial  given 
them,   forfeited    thereby   for  ever  the  order  of  glory. 
Man  sinned,   and  in  him  also  the  two  orders  became 
separated,  and  the  whole  magnificent  apparatus  of  re- 
deeming love  is  God's  invention  to  unite  them  again,  so 
that  men  may  become  capable  of  the  order  of  glory. 
Not  that  this  is  the  sole  reason  or  the  whole  explana- 
tion of  the  Incarnation,  but  only  of  Redemption.     Thus 
it  is  absolutely  necessary,  when  we  are  thinking  of  crea- 
tion, to  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  God  created  angels 
and  men  in  a  state  of  grace,  and  not  in  a  state  of  pure 
nature.     We  are  not  concerned  with  other  possible  ere; 
tions,  but  only  with  our  own  creation;  and  the  creations 
of  both  those  angelic  and  human  families  of  rational 
creatures,  united  in  the  church  under  the  single  headship 
of  Jesus,  were  accomplished  in  a  state  of  grace;  and 
they  were  so,  because  glory,  and  the  especial  supernatu- 


OUR  OWN  GOD,  435 

ral  glory  of  a  participation  in  His  own  beatitude,  entered 
into  God's  first  intention  and  original  idea,  as  Creator. 
"We  shall  never  understand  creation,  if  we  let  this  fact 
out  of  sight  for  a  moment.* 

The  inanimate  and  irrational  creations  glorify  God 
by  the  very  splendour  of  the  beauty  in  which  Tie  has 
clothed  them.  They  glorify  Him  by  their  adaptation 
and  subservience  to  man.  Their  abundance  in  their 
kinds,  and  their  many  kinds  which  are  over  and  above 
what  are  necessary  to  man,  is  another  glory  of  their 
Creator  by  being  in  some  sort  a  picture  of  His  copious 
magnificence.  They  glorify  Him  also  by  bearing  on 
themselves  the  seal  and  signet  of  His  Divinity,  and  even 
of  His  Trinity  and  Unity,  and  their  degree  of  goodness 
depends  on  the  degree  in  which  they  adumbrate  the 
divine  perfections.  But  much  more  does  the  rational 
creation  glorify  its  Creator.  By  its  very  existence  it 
represents  God,  as  the  inanimate  and  irrational  crea- 
tions do.  But  by  its  intelligence  it  knows  God,  and 
with  its  knowledge  loves  Him  ;  and  by  its  will  it  loves 
Him,  and  with  its  love  enjoys  Him.  Tims  the  know- 
ledge, love,  and  joy  of  the  rational  creatures,  the  three 
things  by  which  they  chiefly  shadow  forth  the  Holy 
Trinity,  praise  and  admire  and  worship  the  Divine 
Nature,  all  which  is  the  rendering  glory  to  Him.  By 
these  three  things  they  as  it  were  enter  into  God  and 
rest  in  Him,  through  the  gifts  of  grace  and  glory.  But 
let  us  hear  Lessius.  In  these  three  acts  resides  God's 
ehiefest  glory,  which  He  Himself  intended  in  all  His 
works  j  and  so  likewise  in  the  same  acts  reside  the 
highest  good  and  formal  beatitude  of  men  and  angels. 
By  these  acts  the  blessed  spirits  are  elevated  infinitely 

*  Charitas  est  ergo  causa  effi^em  creators  rationalis,  et  particmatio  divii.a 
bonitdtis  est  causa  fiualis.— Harphius. 


436  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

above  themselves,  and,  in  their  union  with  God,  become 
deiform,  by  a  mos.t  lofty  and  super-eminent  similitude 
with  God,  so  that  the  mind  can  conceive  no  greater 
similitude.  Thus,  like  very  Gods,  they  shine  to  all 
eternity  as  the  sons  of  glory  and  the  divine  brightness. 
By  those  same  acts  they  expand  themselves  into  immen- 
sity so  as  to  be  coequal  and  coextensive,  as  far  as  may 
be,  to  so  great  a  good,  that  they  may  take  it  in  and 
comprehend  it  all.  They  will  not  linger  outside,  as  it 
were  upon  the  surface  of  it,  but  they  go  down  into  its 
profound  depths,  and  enter  into  the  joy  of  their  Lord: 
some  more,  some  less,  according  to  the  magnitude  of 
the  light  of  glory  which  is  communicated  to  each. 
Immersed  in  this  abyss,  they  lose  themselves  and  all 
created  things;  for  all  other  goods  and  joys  seem  to 
them  as.  nothing  by  the  side  of  this  ocean  of  goods  and 
joys.  In  this  abyss  there  is  to  them  no  darkness,  no 
obscurity,  such  as  hangs  about  the  Divinity  to  us  now: 
but  all  is  light  and  immense  serenity,  although  they  are 
not  able  fully  to  comprehend  it.  There  is  their  eternal 
mansion,  with  a  tranquil  security  that  they  shall  never 
fail.  There  is  the  heaven  of  heavens,  in  comparison 
with  which  all  creation  is  but  dross.  There  is  the  ful- 
filling of  all  their  desires;  there  the  possession  and 
fruition  of  all  things  that  are  desirable.  There  nothing 
will  remain  to  be  longed  for,  or  sought  for  more :  for  all 
will  firmly  possess  and  exquisitely  enjoy  every  good 
thing  in  God.  There  the  whole  occupation  of  the  saints 
will  be  to  contemplate  the  infinite  beauty  of  God,  to 
love  His  infinite  goodness,  to  enjoy  His  infinite  sweet- 
ness, to  be  filled  to  overflowing  with  the  torrent  of  His 
pleasures,  and  to  exult  with  an  unspeakable  delight  in 
His  infinite  glory,  and  in  all  the  goods  which  He  and 
they  possess.     Hence  comes  perpetual  praise,  and  bene- 


OUR  OWN  GOD.  437 

diction,  and  thanksgiving;  and  thus  all  the  Blessed, 
arrived  at  the  consummation  of  their  desires,  and, 
knowing  not  what  more  to  crave,  rest  in  God  as  theii 
Last  End.* 

Thus  does  creation  come  home,  like  a  weary  bird  to 
its  roost,  to  rest  in  its  Creator.  And  then  all  move- 
ments cease,  all  vicissitudes,  changes,  progresses,  aspi- 
rations, discoveries;  and  all  is  rest  within,  without, 
around,  the  kingdom  of  eternal  peace.  Then  the  Son 
gives  up  the  kingdom  to  His  Father,  as  the  Apostle 
speaks;!  and  the  subjection  of  His  Human  Nature, 
which  had  been  as  it  were. veiled  in  the  government  of 
the  Church  and  in  the  pomp  of  judgment,  becomes  more 
apparent;  and  then,  as  if  this  last  act  of  unspeakable 
subjection  on  the  part  of  that  Created  Nature,  which  is 
the  Head  and  First-born  of  all  creatures,  were  the 
crowning  beauty  of  creation,  God  the  Creator  becomes 
all  in  all,  and  the  chronicles  of  this  creation  close.  Be- 
yond that,  all  is  lost  in  the  indistinguishable  radiance  of 
eternity.  Such  is  the  history  of  creation,  as  theology 
ventures  to  conceive  it  lying  in  the  divine  mind.  It  is  a 
work  of  simple  love,  of  gigantic  dimensions,  with  the 
most  beautiful  proportion  in  all  its  parts,  and  the  most 
exquisite  finish  in  every  detail.  Love  is  the  life  of  it 
from  first  to  last,  and  its  result  is  an  abiding,  immortal, 
created  counterpart  of  the  eternal,  uncreated,  and  undi- 
vided Trinity. 

If  we  have  taken  pain9  to  master  this  somewhat 
difficult  account  of  creation,  we  shall  see  that  it  is  as 
it  were  the  frame  Avithin  which  all  the  relations  of  the 
Creator  and  the  creature,  which  have  occupied  the  pre- 
ceding chapters,  are  enclosed.  It  will  make  some  things 
plain,  which  perhaps  were  not  plain  before;  and  it  will 

•  Lessiua  lib.  xiy.  t  *  Cor.  xv. 


438  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

itself  be  the  easier  to  understand  from  what  has  gone 
before.  Even  the  horror  of  worldliness  will  now  become 
more  apparent,  and  its  danger  more  alarming.  But 
what  is  the  conclusion  to  which  it  all  leads?  That 
religion  must  necessarily  be  a  service  of  love,  that  the 
easiness  of  salvation  comes  of  its  being  a  personal  love 
of  God,  and  that  the  only  security  from  worldliness  is 
also  in  a  personal  love  of  God.  It  is  neither  the  won- 
derful character  of  its  doctrines,  nor  the  pure  simplicity 
of  its  precepts,  nor  the  supernatural  power  of  its  assis- 
tances, which  make  religion  what  it  is,  but  the  fact  of  its 
being  the  creaiure's  personal  love  of  the  Creator.  This 
is  an  obvious  thing  to  say;  and  yet  such  consequences 
flow  from  it  that  it  must  be  still  more  insisted  on. 

That  all  holiness  should  consist  in  a  personal  love  of 
God  flows  out  of  the  very  tie  of  creation.  Creation 
was  an  act  of  love,  forestalling  or  including  all  other 
loves  whatever.  The  creature  was  at  once  put  by  the 
act  of  creation  into  various  personal  relations  to  the 
Creator,  all  of  which  were  of  the  very  tenderest  and 
most  intimate  description.  It  flows  also  out  of  the 
knowledge  which  the  creature  has  of  the  Creator,  and 
the  motives  for  his  personal  love  of  Him  increase  with 
the  amount  of  that  knowledge.  Each  perfection  pleads 
for  love.  Each  puts  a  price  on  love,  and  on  nothing 
else  but  love.  Love  is  the  one  want  of  all  God's  attri- 
butes, if  we  may  call  it  want,  and  the  supplying  of  that 
one  want  is  the  sole  worship  of  the  creature.  The 
easiness  of  salvation  showed  that  all  religion  must  be  a 
personal  love  of  God.  It  was  easy  just  because  this 
was  all.  The  end  of  all  its  sacraments  and  graces  was 
to  infuse  or  to  elicit  that  love,  and  the  more  of  it  they 
infused  and  the  more  of  it  they  elicited,  the  more  did 
they  contribute  to  the  facility  of  the  triumph.     Sin 


OUR  OWN  GOD.  439 

teaches  us  that  all  is  nothing-worth  but  personal  love 
of  God,   both  because   its  forgiveness  is  the  sweetest 
preacher  of  divine  love  on  earth,  and  because  the  hor- 
ror of  its  punishment  is  the  total  loss  of  love   in   that 
dark  godless  hell  which  is  its  end.     The  personality  of 
the  evil  spirit  drives  us  also  into  personal  love  of  God, 
as  our  security  and  refuge.     The  dangers  of  the  world, 
are   to  be  met  in   no  other  way  than  by  the  personal 
love  ot   God.     It  is  only  the  love  of  Him  which  can 
kill   unworthy  loves.     It   is   only   the   desire  of  Him 
which  can  turn  the  soul  away  sick,  and  dispirited,  with 
the  perishable  goods  of  earth.     It  is  only   the  light  of 
His  beauty  which  can  dim  and  dishonour  the  flaunting, 
garish   beauty   of  the  world,  or  make  us  secretly  and 
sweetly    discontented    with    its    lawful,    natural,    and 
blameless  loveliness.     But  most  of  all  does  this  neces- 
sity of  a  personal  love  of  God  flow  out  of  the  fact,  that 
God  Himself,  and  not  any   of  His  created  rewards,   is 
our   Last  End.     God  Possessed,  our  own  God,  that  is 
creation's  home,  that  is  our  last  end,  there  only  is  our 
rest.     O   that  the  winds  of  grace  would  blow  that  we 
might    sail  more   swiftly   over  this  broad  sea  to  our 
eternal    home!     Another  day  is  gone,  another  week  is 
passed,  another  year  is  told.     Blessed  be  God  then,  we 
are  nearer  to  the  end.     It  comes  swiftly;  yet  it  comes 
slowly  loo.     Come  it  must,  and  then  it  will  all  be  but 
a  dream  to  look  back  upon.     But  there  are  stern  things 
to  pass  through;  and  to  the  getting  well  through  them» 
there  goes  more  than  we  can  say.     One  thing  we  know* 
that   personal   love  of   God   is   the   only   thing    which 
reaches  God  at  last.     Other  things, — they  look  wise, 
they  begin  well,  they  sound  good — but   they  wander; 
they  are   on   no  path;    they   go  aside,  or  they  fall  be- 
hind, but  home  they  never  come.     To  love,  the  way  is 


'44Q  OttROWNGGp* 

neither  bard  to  find,  nor  hard  to  tread;  for  so  it  is 
that  love  never  comes  home  tired.  It  gets  to  God 
through  the  longest  life  more  fresh,  more  eager,  more 
venturous,  more  full  of  youth,  more  brimming  with  ex- 
pectation, than  the  day  it  started  amid  the  excesses 
dnd  inexperiences  of  its  first  conversion. 

No  one  denies  this  doctrine  of  the  necessity  of  per- 
sonal love  of  God.  It  could  not  be  denied  without 
heresy.  But  there  are  two  different  schools  of  spiri- 
tuality which  treat  it  very  differently;  indeed  whose 
difference  consists  in  their  different  treatment  of  it.* 
All  are  agreed  that  as  the  proof  of  love  is  the  keeping 
of  the  commandments,  so  the  sense  of  duty,  the  brave 
determination  to  do  always  and  only  what  is  right,  and 
because  it  is  right,  must  go  along  with  and  be  a  part 
of  personal  love  of  God.f  Personal  love  of  God  with- 
out this  would  be  a  falsehood  and  a  mockery.  They 
who  dwell  most  strongly  on  the  sense  of  duty  do  not  omit 
personal  love  of  God ;  and  they  who  lay  the  greatest 
stress  on  love  both  imply  and  secure  the  keen  sense  of 
rightfulness  and  duty.  But  much  depends  on  which 
of  the  two  we  put  foremost.  It  is  possible  by  dwell- 
ing exclusively  on  love  to  make  religion  too  much  a 
matter  of  mere  devotions,  an  affair  of  sentiments  and 
feelings,  highly  strung  and  therefore  brittle,  over- 
strained and  so  shortlived.     It  is  possible  on  the  other 

*  A  -whole  string  of  consequences  seem  to  follow  in  ascetical  theology  from 
the  doctrine  of  Vasquez,  Naturam  rationalem  esse  regulam  honestatis.  The 
common  teaching  however  is  against  him.  See  Vasq.  i.  2.  disp.  58.  2.  and 
disp.  97.  3. 

t  To  the  doctrine  that  a  good  action  is  essentially  and  intrinsically  goofl, 
Medina  objects,  Si  quis  velit  amare  Deum,  et  non  ex  motivo,  quod  hoc  sit 
conforme  legi  divinse  id  prsecipienti,  adhuc  ponit  actum  honestum  et  bonuni. 
Viva  replies,  Qui  amat  Deum,  et  non  ex  motivo  honestatis,  ponit  actum 
honestum  sed  non  ponit  actum  honestum  honeste.  De  Actibus  Humanis. 
qu.  ii. 


OUR  OWN  GDD.  441 

hand,  that  by  laying  all  the  stress  on  duty,  especially 
with  young  persons  or  again  with  sinners,  the  true 
motive  of  duty  may  not  have  fair  play,  and  the  pecu- 
liar character  of  the  Gospel  be  overlooked  or  inade- 
quately remembered.     We  must  pursue  such  and  such 
a  line  of  conduct  because  it  is  commanded,  because  it 
is  right,  because  it  will  win  us  respect,  because  it  will 
enable  us  to  form  habits  of  virtue,  because  it  will  edify, 
because  we  cannot  otherwise  go  to  communion,  because 
we  shall  be  lost  eternally  if  we  do  not  pursue  it.    This 
is  quite  intelligible,  and  it  is  all  very  true,  but  not  par- 
ticularly persuasive,   especially   to  those  whom  youth 
makes  ardent,   or  those  whom   sin  has  made  invalids. 
We  must  pursue  such  and  such  a  line  of  conduct  be- 
cause it  is  the  one  which  God  loves,  and  God  loves  u* 
most  tenderly  and  has  loved  us  from  all  eternity,   and 
God  yearns  that  we  should  love  Him,  and  He  catches 
at  our    love  as  if  it  were  a  prize,  and  repays  it  with  a 
fondness  which  is  beyond  human  comprehension,  and  it 
grieves  His  Love;  and  He  makes  it  a  personal  matter,  if 
we  swerve  from  such  conduct,  while  if  we  only  love,  all 
will  be  easy.     This  also  is  intelligible,  and  very  true, 
and  also  very  persuasive,  and  has  a  wonderful  root  of 
perseverance  in  it.     But  it  comes  to  pass  that,  while 
both  views  are  very  true,  they  nevertheless  form  quite 
different  characters.     So  that  it  is  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant practical  questions  of  our  whole  lives,  to  settle 
whether  we  will  love  God  because  it  is  right,  or  whether 
we  will  do  right  because  God  loves  us  and  we  love  Him. 
Strange  to  say,  while  both  these  views  are  true,  they 
look  as  we  examine  the  working  out  of  them,  like  two 
different  religions.     The  fact  is,  that  for  some  reason 
or  other  it  is  very  hard  to  persuade  a  man,  or  for  him  to 
persuade  himself,  that  God  loves  him.  The  moment  that 


442 


OUR  OWN  GOD, 


fact  becomes  a  part  of  his  own  sensible  convictions,  a 
perfect  revolution  has  been  worked  in  his  soul.  Every- 
thing appears  different  to  him.  He  has  new  lights, 
and  feels  new  powers.  Faculties  in  him,  which  were 
well  nigh  dormant,  wake  up  and  do  great  things.  He 
is  a  new  man.  It  is  a  kind  of  conversion.  However 
good  he  was  before,  however  regular,  however  con- 
scientious, however  devotional,  he  feels  that  the  change 
which  has  passed  over  him  is  in  some  sense  a  veritable 
conversion.  He  is  on  a  new  line,  and  will  henceforth 
move  differently.  Many  go  to  their  graves  without  at 
all  realizing  practically  the  immense  love  which  God 
has  for  them.  It  has  been  a  want  in  them  all  through 
their  lives,  and  they  would  have  been  higher  in  heaven 
had  they  known  on  earth  what  heaven  has  now  taught 
them.  A  theologian  says,  that  it  is  one  of  the  weak- 
nesses even  of  the  saints,  that  they  cannot  believe  in 
the  greatness  of  God's  love  for  them.  It  is  related  in 
the  chronicles  of  the  Franciscans,  that  until  her  direc- 
tor witli  some  difficulty  undeceived  her,  St.  Elizabeth 
of  Hungary  thought  that  she  loved  God  more  than  He 
loved  her.  In  truth  the  very  immensity,  the  excesses, 
the  apparent  extravagancies  of  God's  love,  stand  in  its 
own  light,  and  hinder  men  from  believing  it  as  they 
should.  They  hardly  dare  to  do  so;  for  it  seems  in- 
credible that  God  should  love  us  as  He  is  said  to  do. 
It  is  the  grand  crisis  in  everybody's  life,  an  era  to  date 
from,  when  the  knowledge  that  his  Creator  loves  him 
passes  into  a  sensible  conviction. 

If  all  the  evil  that  is  in  the  world  arises  from  the 
want  of  a  practical  acknowledgment  of  the  true  rela- 
tions between  the  Creator  and  the  creature,  it  is 
equally  true,  that  from  the  same  want  comes  all  that  is 
deficient  in  our  spiritual  lives;  and  furthermore,   the 


OTJU  OWN  GOD.  443 

true  relations  between  the  Creator  and  the  creature 
ore  more  readily  appreciated,  more  lovingly  embraced, 
and  more  perseveringly  acted  out,  on  the  system  which 
puts  love  first  and  duty  second,  which  dues  right  be- 
cause God  loves  us,  rather  than  loves  God  because  it 
is  right.  Religion,, no  doubt,  comes  to  persons,  in 
different  ways.  Different  parts  of  it  attract  different 
minds.  Men  begin  in  various  places  in  religion.  There 
is  not  exactly  any  one  normal  beginning  of  being  pious. 
VS  e  should  never  think  therefore  of  condemning,  or 
throwing  the  slightest  slur,  on  any  method  winch 
succeeded  in  securing  the  continuous  keeping  of  God's 
commandments  upon  supernatural  motives.  This  must 
be  borne  in  mind,  together  with  the  full  admission  both 
of  the  safety  and  soundness  of  the  other  principle, 
while  we  state  the  reasons  for  preferring  that  school 
of  spirituality,  which  puts  forward  most  prominently 
the  personal  love  of  God,  and  dwells  upon  it  to  all 
persons  and  at  every  turn.  It  seems  of  the  two  the 
most  likely  to  advance  the  Creator's  glory,  first  by 
saving  a  great  number  of  souls,  and  secondly  by 
swelling  the  ranks  of  those  who  generously  aim  at  per- 
fection. 

Love  sharpens  our  eyes,  and  quickens  all  the  senses 
of  our  souls.  Now  when  we  dwell  very  exclusively 
on  the  sense  of  duty,  and  urge  people  to  learn  to  do 
right  just  because  it  is  right,  we  seem  often  to  be  want- 
ing in  the  delicacy  and  fineness  of  our  spiritual  dis- 
cernment. We  are  not  always  on  God's  side,  because 
we  do  not  instantaneously  and  instinctively  apprehend 
on  which  side  He  is.  "We  do  not  prophetically  see  the 
evil,  which  is  as  yet  invisible  and  implicit  in  some  line 
of  action.  Our  spiritual  tastes  are  blunt,  sometimes 
inclining  to  be  gross.     We  do  not  at  once  detect  world- 


444  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

liness  in  its  first  insidious  aggressions.  Love  has  a 
specialty  for  all  these  things;  and  conscientiousness 
often  runs  aground  in  shallow  places,  where  love  sails 
through,  finding  deep  water  with  an  almost  supernatural 
skill.  The  duty  principle,  if  it  is  allowable  so  to  name 
it  shortly  for  convenience  sake,  is  more  apt  to  grow 
weary  than  love.  It  is  always  against  the  grain  of  our 
corrupt  nature,  and  consequently  we  are  obliged  to  be 
always  making  efforts,  in  order  to  keep  ourselves  up 
to  the  mark ;  and  when  times  of  dryness  or  seasons  of 
temptation  come,  these  efforts  are  not  easy  to  sustain. 
Love  on  the  contrary  is  a  stimulant.  It  has  a  patent 
for  making  things  easy.  It  invigorates  us,  and  enables 
us  to  do  hard  things  with  a  sensible  sweetness  and  a 
religious  pleasure,  when  mere  conscientiousness  would 
fail  through  the  infirmity  of  its  own  nature.  Thus  per- 
severance is  more  congruous  to  the  conduct  which  pro- 
ceeds on  the  principle  of  love,  than  to  that  which  looks 
prominently  to  duty.  Moreover  where  there  is  effort, 
there  is  seldom  abundance,  while  it  is  the  characteristic 
of  love  to  be  prolific. 

It  is  necessary  for  us  when  we  act  entirely  from  a 
sense  of  duty  to  go  through  many  more  intellectual 
processes  than  when  we  act  from  love.  We  have  to 
investigate  the  character  of  the  action,  to  ascertain  its 
bearings,  to  inform  ourselves  of  its  circumstances,  to 
guess  its  consequences.  All  this  takes  time  and  makes 
a  man  slow,  and  as  life  runs  rapidly,  he  is  apt  to  be 
taken  by  surprise,  and  either  be  guilty  of  some  omis- 
sion, or  act  in  a  hurry  at  the  last.  This  is  the  reason 
why  slow  men  are  often  so  precipitate.  Any  one  who 
observes  will  see  instances  of  this  daily,  in  the  habitual 
impetuosities  of  timid  men.  The  duty  principle,  also, 
only  sails  well  in  fine  weather.    It  does  not  do  for 


OUR  OWN  GOD.  445 

storms.  It  wants  elasticity  and  buoyancy,  and  so, 
when  it  has  fallen  into  sin,  it  recovers  itself  with  great 
difficulty,  and  is  awkward  in  its  repentance,  as  if  it 
were  in  a  position  for  which  it  never  was  intended.  It 
soon  despairs.  Sin  seems  a  necessity,  and  a  few  seri- 
ous relapses  are  enough  to  make  it  give  up  the  spiritual 
life  altogether.  There  are  cases  of  men  who  nevei 
could  recover  one  mortal  sin;  and  we  should  be  inclined 
to  suspect  that  they  were  mostly  cases  of  men  who 
acted  from  conscience  in  preference  to  love,* 

It  also  has  a  propensity  to  concentrate  us  upon  our- 
selves, and  so  to  hinder  charity.     Self  must,  come  in, 
when  we  are  always  looking  at  self  and  self's  behaviour, 
and  when  even  the  Object  of  faith  presents  itself  habitu- 
ally to  us  in  the  light  of  self's  rule.     In  this  way  it  not 
unfrequently  hinders  the  more  beautiful  exercises  of 
charity ;  for  charity  is  not  the  doing  only  our  duty  to  our 
neighbour.  That  does  not  take  us  much  beyond  justice. 
The  habit  of  mind   of  mere   conscientiousness  seems 
different  from  the  habit  of  mind  of  exuberant  charity. 
It  is  not  moreover  genial  to  high  spiritual  things,  such 
as  voluntary  austerities,  the  love  of  suffering,  the  prac- 
tice of  the  evangelical  counsels,  the  sorrow  because  God 
is  so  little  loved  and  so  much  offended,  and  the  willing 
renunciation  of  spiritual  consolations  and  sensible  sweet- 
nesses.    A  merely  conscientious  man  may  be  intellec- 
tually convinced   that  he  ought,  to  aim  at  perfection, 
but  the  chances  are  immensely  against  his  succeeding; 

•  Even  conscience  acts  rather  by  lore  of  the  beauty  of  virtue  than  by 
hatred  of  the  malice  of  vice.  Antoine  says,  Voluntas  aversari  non  potest 
objectum  malum  propter  solam  ejus  malitiam  tanquam  unicum  motivum, 
quia  odium  malitise  vitii  necessario  fundatur  in  amore  objective  boni'tatis 
virtutis  opposite?,  illumque  necessario  supponit.  Unde  nemo  odit  malitiam 
alicujus  vitii  propter  se,  nisi  amet,  et  quia  amat,  bonitatem  etjmlchritu- 
dinem  virtutis  opposite.    De  Act.  Hum.  cap.  iii.  art.  i. 


416  OUR  OWN  GOD, 

and  for  this  reason,  that  he  has  not  sufficient  momen- 
tum. His  impulse  dies  out,  and  he  stops  short  of  the 
aim.  Doing  what  is  right  because  it  is  right  is  not  a 
sufficiently  perfect  or  robust  motive  to  carry  a  man 
all  the  way  to  perfection.  Love  alone  can  do  that.  It 
sounds  almost  like  an  absurdity  to  talk  of  observing  the 
counsels  from  a  sense  of  duty,  or  of  aiming  at  a  more 
perfect  interior  observance  of  the  precepts  than  it  is  our 
duty  to  aim  at,  because  we  have  determined  to  make  a 
duty  of  it. 

This  principle,  too,  although  it  is  thoroughly  Chris- 
tian, and  leans  on  Christ,  appears  to  have  but  a  weak 
tendency  to  produce  that  nameless  indescribable  likeness 
to  Christ,  which  is  the  characteristic  of  the  saints.  It 
has  not  enough  of  self-oblivion  in  it,  and  is  very  defi- 
cient in  its  sympathies  with  the  mystical  operations  of 
grace.  Moreover  it  has  not  the  same  blessings  as  love ; 
not  that  it  is  not  an  ordinance  of  God,  and  one  which 
no  one  can  with  safety  forget  or  depreciate ;  but  there 
is  an  air  about  it  of  the  Old  Testament  rather  than 
the  New.  It  likewise  keeps  men  back  by  leading  to 
scruples.  It  never  lets  conscience  alone.  It  wastes  in 
a  fruitless  post-mortem  examination  of  its  actions  the 
time  that  might  have  been  spent  in  acts  of  heroic  con- 
trition or  of  disinterested  love.  Nay,  it  will  even  dis- 
inter again  and  again  those  actions,  which  have  already 
passed  the  ordeal  of  so  many  examinations,  and  it  will 
dissect,  and  meddle,  until  it  has  acquired  an  inveterate 
habit  of  stooping,  and  contracted  a  disease  of  the  eyes. 
This  is  its  immoderation,  the  excess  to  which  it  tend.*, 
and  to  which  it  must  tend  with  all  the  more  determina- 
tion the  higher  it  rises  in  the  spiritual  life,  where  com- 
mon rules  are  less  clear  in  their  application,  and  the 
processes  of  grace  more  intricate   and   unusual.     Yet 


OUR  OWN  GOD.  447 

while  it  breeds  scruples,  tins  same  principle  also  minis- 
ters to  self-trust,  because  of  its  habit  of  examining 
actions  for  itself,  and  then  of  going  by  what  it  sees. 
it  is  very  rare  to  find  a  man,  who  habitually  does  what 
is  right  only  because  it  is  right,  who  is  not  at  the  sime 
time  quietly  self-opinionated,  and  dangerously  free  from 
all  distrust  of  his  own  decisions. 

Then  again  there  seems  in  such  a  principle  of  action 
no  real  rehearsal  for  heaven.  The  Blessed  in  heaven 
do  not  act  from  a  sense  of  duty.  They  contemplate  and 
love.  Surely  there  must  have  been  some  habit  formed 
on  earth,  to  correspond  to  and  anticipate  that  celestial 
habit  of  keeping  the  gaze  fixed  on  the  beautiful  object 
of  faith.  A  conscientious  seraph  is  a  very  difficult  idea 
to  realize.  In  truth  there  is  nothing  supernatural  about 
this  principle,  except  the  amount  of  love  which  it  con- 
tains. It  borrows  from  love  all  about  it  that  is  worth 
much,  and  yet  keeps  love  in  the  lowest  place,  as  if  it 
were  a  dependent  and  inferior.  Thus  we  are  not  sur- 
prised  to  find  those  who  habitually  act  upon  it,  some- 
what out  of  harmony  with  the  lives  of  the  saints,  with 
new  miracles,  with  popular  devotions,  with  apparitions, 
pilgrimages,  taking  vows,  and  other  supernatural  things. 
Foi  the  principle  does  not  take  kindly  to  the  super- 
natural, grasps  it  nervously,  and  so  is  perpetually  letting 
it  slip  because  it  cannot  hold  it. 

Keither  is  it  an  attractive  principle  to  others.  It 
deprives  goodness  of  much  of  its  missionary  character 
and  of  many  of  its  converting  influences.  It  does  not 
draw  people  round  it,  or  make  sinners  wonder  enviously 
at  the  sweetness  of  Christian  sanctity.  Is  is  dry.  It 
repels.  It  speaks  shortly,  and  makes  no  allowances. 
It  is  unseasonable,  and  is  proud  of  disregarding  circum- 
stances.    Time  and  place  are  out  of  time  and  place  to 


448  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

it.  It  has  a  propensity  to  preach,  and  dictate,  and  he 
tiresome.  In  all  these  respects  it  plays  into  the  hands 
of  the  natural  foibles  of  those  to  whose  character  this 
principle  is  most  likely  to  commend  itself.  Then,  which 
sounds  a  privilege  but  is  in  truth  a  disability,  it  is  a 
rarer  gift  than  love.  It  is  often  a  growth  of  natural 
character,  whereas  God  pours  love  out  on  every  one. 
It  thus  embraces  fewer  souls:  because  fewer  are  capa- 
ble of  walking  by  it.  It  is  love,  it  is  walking  by  love, 
that  swells  the  grand  multitude  of  the  number  who  are 
saved.  Conscientiousness  could  never  fill  heaven  half 
so  fast  as  love.  So  that  it  neither  manufactures  the 
high  saints,  nor  yet  throngs  with  happy  crowds  the 
outer  courts  of  heaven. 

It  is  also  less  directly  connected  with  the  gift  of  final 
perseverance  than  love.  As  was  said,  it  is  a  life  of 
efforts,  and  it  is  the  nature  of  efforts  to  be  complete 
in  themselves,  and  not  enchained  one  with  another; 
and  (he  doctrine  of  habit  is  a  poor  thing  to  trust  to  in 
the  supernatural  affairs  of  grace.  God  Himself  acts 
from  love,  that  is,  from  conformity  to  Himself,  and  not 
from  a  sense  of  duty.*  God's  life  is  love;  and  thus 
love  has  the  blessing  of  exuberance,  of  fruitfulness,  of 
speed.     It  is  venturesome,  overflowing,  divine. 

All  that  is  good  about  the  other  principle  is  liable  to 
constant  error  from  a  want  of  moderation;  and  in 
pointing  out  the  reasons  for  preferring  the  principle  of 
love  to  the  principle  of  duty,  as  an  habitual  motive- 

*  In  Deo  operationes  moraliter  bonse,  honestse,  ac  laudabiles  dicuntur 
quas  sunt  conibraies  fini  ipsius  Dei,  ut  est  amor  suimet.  And  again,  Deus, 
quia  non  habet  finem  ultimum  a  se  distinetum,  quando  operatur  honeate, 
hoc  est  confbrmiter  ad  proprium  finem,  et  juxta  exigentiain,  quam  habet  a 
propria  natura,  non  obligatur  rigorose  a  regula  honestatis,  sed  pliysiee,  imo 
et  metaphysice,  necessitatur  a  Seipso,  Viva,  p.  ii,  disp.  vii.  q.  i.  de  prima 
regula  moralitatis. 


©UR  OWN  GOD.  ild 

power  in  the  spiritual  life,  it  has  been  necessary  to 
touch  upon  some  of  the  exaggerations  to  which  the 
exclusive  principle  of  duty  may  lead,  but  does  not 
necessarily  lead.  This  must  not  be  misunderstood. 
The  principle  of  duty  is  holy  and  strong.  The  princi- 
ple of  love  disjoined  from  the  principle  of  duty  is  a 
tiling  which  will  save  no  man.  Doing  right  because 
it  is  right  is  a  course  which  every  one  ought  to  pursue, 
a  habit  which  all  should  cultivate.  All  that  we  have 
been  maintaining  is,  that  the  spiritual  man  who  looks  at 
love  primarily  and  prominently,  and  at  duty  secondarily 
and  subordinately,  will  sooner  be  a  thoroughly  converted 
man,  or  a  saint,  or  a  higher  kind  of  saint,  than  the 
Spiritual  man  who  reverses  the  process,  and  looks  at  duty 
primarily  and  prominently,  as  the  solid  part  of  his 
devotion,  and  love  secondarily  and  subordinately,  as  the 
Sweetening  of  his  duty. 

Personal  love  of  God !  this  then  is  the  conclusion  of 
the  whole.     To  love  God  because  He  desires  our  love, 
to  love  Him  because  He  first  loved  us,  to  love  Him  be- 
cause He  loves  us  with  such  a  surpassing  love,  to  love 
our  Creator  because  He  redeemed  us  and  our  Redeemer 
because  He  created  us,  to  love  Him  as  our  Creator  in 
all  the  orders  of  nature,  grace,  and  glory ,  and  finally 
to  love  Him  for  His  own  sake  because  of  His  infinite 
perfections,  because  He  is  what  He  is, — this,  and  this 
slone  is  religion;  this  is  what  flows  from  the  ties  be- 
tween the  Creator  and  His  redeemed  creature;  for  what 
is  redemption  but  the  restoring,  repairing,  and  enno- 
bling of  creation?     To  love  our  Creator  as  our  First 
Cause,  as  our  Last  End,  and  as  our  Abiding  Possession, 
-—this   is   the  whole  matter.     He  in  His  mercy  has 
made  the  love  of  Him  a  precept,  and  therefore  those 

who  do  right  because  it  is  right  really  love  Him,  and. 
29       r 


450  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

go  to  Him  at  last,  as  well  as  those  who  only  love  Him 
or  chiefly  love  Him  out  of  love.  But  this  last  way  is 
the  most  easy  for  ourselves,  and  the  most  honourable 
for  Him.  This  is  why  I  said  at  the  outset  that  the 
beginning  of  the  whole  process  was  rather  in  God'3 
touching  and  mysterious  desire  for  our  love  than  in  His 
love  of  us.  That  desire  of  His  seems  the  handle  by 
which  loving  souls  take  hold  of  their  religion,  and  in 
which  they  find  the  key  of  their  own  position  of 
creatures,  and  to  the  rights  and  attractions  of  the  Crea- 
tor;  and  this  desire  of  God  for  our  love  leads  straight 
to  our  desire  for  Him,  our  desire  not  so  much  for  His 
love  as  for  Himself,  that  gift  of  Himself,  which,  though 
inseparable  from  His  love,  is  yet  much  more  than  love, 
more  precious  and  more  tender. 

What  then  is  life,  but  the  possession  of  God,  and  tha 
beauty  of  God,  drawing  us  ever  more  and  more  power- 
fully to  the  fuller  possession  of  Him,  until  at  length  in 
heaven  we  come  to  the  fulness  of  our  possession?  Let 
us  emancipate  ourselves  for  awhile  from  earthly 
thoughts,  and  look  up  to  heaven,  while  the  angels,  who 
jvjoice  over  one  sinner  that  does  penance,  are  keep- 
ing the  feast  of  All  Saints.  That  day  might  be  called 
the  Feast  of  the  Magnificence  of  Jesus;  for  the  spirit 
of  the  feast  is  a  spirit  of  magnificence;  it  is  the  feast  of 
the  heavenly  court  of  the  great  King  of  our  salvation. 
Yet  what  is  the  sight  which  we  behold  there?  Ah  ! 
if  we  look  into  heaven,  we  shall  learn  much  about 
creation  !  Let  us  put  aside,  not  in  forgetfulness,  still 
less  for  lack  of  burning  love,  the  empire  of  the  angels, 
our  elder  brothers,  and  look  only  at  the  human  family 
which  is  there.  Around  the  altar  of  the  Lamb,  by 
Mary's  maternal  throne,  there  are  various  rings  and 
choirs  and  glorious  hierarchies  of  the  saints.     They  lie 


cm  own  goo.  <51 

bathed  in  ppl^ndour,  beautiful  to  look  upon,  but  it  is  a 
splendour  which  is  not  their  own.  Each  soul  is  beau- 
tified with  an  infinite  variety  of  graces,  the  particular 
combination  of  which  is  distinctive  of  that  particular 
soul,  and  is  a  separate  ornament  of  heaven,  so  that  not 
one  saint  could  be  spared  without  heaven  missing  a 
portion  of  its  beauty.  Yet  those  graces  are  not  their 
own.  They  were  gifts  to  begin  with,  and  they  must 
remain  gifts  to  the  end.  Their  exceeding  joy  is  such  a 
vision  of  delight  that  we  could  not  see  it  now,  and  live. 
In  truth  there  is  not  one  of  their  gifts,  not  the  least  and 
lowest  of  their  rewards  but  they  might  well  joy  in  it 
with  a  surpassing  joy.  But  it  is  not  so.  Their  joy  is 
not  in  their  own  beauty,  or  their  own  perfections,  or 
their  bright  rewards.  It  is  entirely  in  something  which 
is  not  their  own.  It  is  the  beauty  of  Jesus  which  is 
their  magnificence  and  joy.  The  eternity  of  their  joy 
depends,  not  on  any  inward  possibility  of  their  own  to 
fall  away,  but  on  the  ceaseless  attraction  of  that  unfad- 
ing beauty.  O  look  at  the  tranquillity  of  that  vast 
scene,  outspread  before  our  eyes  !  It  is  creation  in  its 
Father's  house,  creation  in  its  home  of  glory.  Its  wan- 
derings are  over,  its  problems  solved,  its  consummation 
gloriously  accomplished.  Yet  the  completion  and  ele- 
vation of  its  nature,  the  expansion  and  coronation  of  its 
graces,  and  no  less  also  the  actual  exuberant  and  joyous 
life  of  its  eternal  glory,  is  not  in  itself,  but  in  its  pos- 
session of  the  Creator.  It  has  left  itself,  and  taken  up 
with  something  else,  and  so  it  is  perfect,  complete,  at 
home,  at  rest;  for  that  something  else  is  God,  its  all  in 
all,  its  own  God. 

But  let  us  look  back  again  to  earth,  into  the  ages 
past,  and  see  the  processes  by  which  God  made  His 
saints,  by  which  He  drew  all  these  multitudinous  riuga 


452  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

and  choirs  and  hierarchies  of  the  saints,  out  of  the  thick 
of  the  world  into  His  Bosom,  where  just  now  we  saw 
them  lying.  The  same  beauty,  which,  seen,  is  their 
eternal  life,  unseen  and  believed  in  drew  them  over 
earth  to  heaven.  The  ways  were  many,  the  ways  were 
strange,  the  ways  were  unlike  each  other,  but  this  was 
the  one  invariable  process.  It  was  not  a  mere  sense 
of  duty,  nor  a,  grand  conscientiousness,  however  bright 
and  strong,  which  carried  them  heroically  through 
opposing  obstacles,  right  up  to  the  highest  seats  in 
heaven.  It  was  a  secret  attraction,  a  drawing  at  their 
hearts,  a  current  sucking  them  in,  at  first  faint  and 
feeble,  slow  and  uncertain,  then  steadier,  and  now 
swifter,  and  at  last  turbulent,  and  then  suddenly  they 
were  drawn  under  and  engulfed  for  ever  in  the  beauti- 
ful vision  of  their  Creator.  %t  is  the  characteristic  of 
God's  greatest  operations  on  earth  to  be  invisible.  So 
is  it  for  the  most  part  with  His  process  of  making 
saints.  When  it  does  come  to  view,  it  is  so  unlike 
what  we  should  have  expected  that  it  scandalizes  us  by 
its  strangeness.  Can  we  point  to  the  life  of  any  one 
saint,  at  whom  people  did  not  take  scandal,  while  he 
was  being  sanctified?  Why  do  we  not  remember  more 
continually  this  fact,  and  the  lesson  it  teacnes  us? 
When  men  saw  Jesus  too  near  and  too  openly,  th«jy 
judged  Him  worthy  of  death.  So  it  is  with  ourselves. 
When  His  shadow  crosses  us  in  a  saint,  we  judge  him 
to  be  anything  rather  than  a  saint,  and.  worthy  of  con- 
demnation. 

The  immense  variety  of  ways   in  which  the  saints 
/are  drawn  to.  God  is  greatly   to  be  noted.     Climate, 
:rank,  date  in,  the  world's  history,  sufferings,   circum- 
stances,  education,   vocation,    national    character,    all 
these  have  bad  so  much  to  do.  with,  itr  and  yet  so  little. 


OUT.  OWN  GOD.  453 

They  account  for  much,  jet  not  for  all,  aud  for  the 
main  thing  not  in  the  least;  for  the  same  things,  which 
seem  to  be  helping  saints  forward,  are  visibly  keeping 
other  souls  hack.  There  is  plainly  a  secret  spell  at  work, 
a  spell  on  the  world,  on  life,  on  sorrow,  on  darkness,  on 
trial,  and  even  on  sin.  It  is  working  in  them.  It  is 
strengthening  itself  in  different  6ouls  by  contradictory 
circumstances.  But  it  is  a  spell,  nothing  else  than  a 
spell.  It  is  none  other  than  the  beauty  of  Jesus, 
"which  is  the  life  and  light  of  heaven.  Heaven  is  heaven, 
because  God  is  so  beautiful  in  the  light ;  and  earth  is 
the  factory  of  saints,  because  God  is  so  beautiful  in  the 
darkness. 

See  how  the  spell  acts,  even  against  the  huge,  almost 
resistless,  power  of  the  world.  Who  are  they  whom  it 
affects?  Ah!  look  at  them,  lying  on  God's  breast, 
gleaming  there,  bright  trophies  of  redeeming  grace. 
They  are  young  delicate  highborn  virgins,  in  the  fires, 
under  tho  pincers,  among  the  teeth  of  lions,  boy  and 
girl  martyrs,  like  Venantius,  Agatha,  Agnes,  Lucy, 
Catherine,  and  Cecilia.  They  are  children,  saints  in 
childhood,  whose  reason  was  anticipated  that  they 
might  love  Jesus ;  they  were  little  things  who  tore 
their  flesh  with  scourges,  who  prayed  hours  at  a  time, 
who  had  extasies  and  worked  miracles,  who  had  mys- 
terious sufferings,  and  lived  in  a  mystical  world,  and 
were  incomprehensibly  like  Jesus.  They  were  kings 
and  queens,  who  put  away  their  crowns,  took  up  the 
cross,  and  bared  their  feet,  and  went  off  after  God. 
They  were  gallant  soldiers,  like  St.  Ignatius,  or  lawyers 
like  St.  Alphonso.  They  were  freshly  converted  sin- 
ners, with  all  their  habits  of  sin  still  strong  upon  them. 
Or  they  were  ordinarily  good  men  in  the  world  who 
lovod   permitted   liberty   and   blameless  pleasure,  but 


A.ZI  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

over  whom  by  degrees  a  sort  of  dream  seemed  to  pass ; 
and  noiselessly  they  were  led  out  of  the  crowd  dream- 
ing of  the  beautiful  God  ;  and  there  was  a  cold  touch 
of  death  ;  and  they  woke  up  and  found  it  more  than  true. 
These  were  the  persons  on  whom  the  spell  worked. 
Now  see  from  what  it  drew  them.  There  were  first 
of  all  the  exquisite  sinless  pleasures  of  all  the  senses. 
The  saints  are  so  far  from  being  insensible  persons, 
that  none  can  rival  them  in  the  keen  susceptibilities  of 
pleasure,  or  in  the  refined  vivacity  of  their  sensitive- 
ness. It  is  this  which  enables  them  to  suffer  so  acutely, 
as  if  they  had  first  been  flayed  alive,  and  then  bid  to 
walk  through  the  thorny  world.  There  was  the  ex- 
ternal beauty  of  the  earth,  in  which  they  could  read 
more  plainly  than  other  men  the  sweet  enticing  love- 
liness of  God's  perfections.  There  were  the  ties  of  the 
most  holy  and  tender  love.  Children  deserted  their 
parents,  who  loved  those  parents  with  such  a  love  as 
common  children  do  not  know.  There  were  mothers 
walking  into  convents  over  the  bodies  of  their  sons. 
There  were  mothers  watching  their  sons  writhing  in 
the  excruciating  rgonies  of  a  ferocious  martyrdom,  and 
encouraging  them  with  tearless  eyes  to  suffer  more  and 
more.  There  were  fond  husbands  and  doting  wives 
parting  of  their  own  accord  for  all  the  term  of  life,  and 
the  cloister  door  closing  upon  well-known  faces  as  if  it 
had  been  the  hard  cold  slab  of  the  very  tomb.  There 
were  joys  from  which  the  saints  voluntarily  turned  in 
order  that  they  might  indulge  in  sorrow,  and  so  catch 
just  a  little  look  of  Christ.  And  under  their  sorrows, 
when  heaven  rained  crosses  on  their  heads,  and  earth 
burned  their  feet  as  they  walked, — 0  then  was  the 
magic  of  the  potent  spell  1  with  what  elasticity  they 
rose  up  under  their  load,  and  now  they  bang,  like  angeh, 


OUB  OWN  GOD.  45  J 

as  they  went !  And  it  was  liberty  which  they  all  gave 
up,  the  liberty  out  of  which  God  gets  all  His  creature's 
We,  the  liberty  which  alas!  refuses  Him  so  much! 
They  gave  up  their  liberty  for  the  sweet  captivity  of 
personal  love  of  God  ;  but  it  was  the  free  surrender  of 
their  liberty  which  made  it  beautiful  to  God's  eye,  and 
sweetness  to  His  taste,  and  music  in  His  ear.  "What  a 
spell  to  have  drawn  such  myriads  of  souls  from  such 
attractions,  what  power,  what  pleading,  what  persua- 
siveness, what  versatility,  and  yet  withal  tranquil  as  the 
beautiful  God  Himself! 

All  these  wonders  are  done  by  the  beauty  of  God 
acting  on  the  soul.  In  heaven  it  is  more  intelligible  ; 
for  there  the  blessed  Vision  is  eternal,  unchan<nucr   and 

*  ©        ©' 

in  the  full  bkize  of  glory.    But  the  strange  and  touching 
thing  is,   that  on  earth   it  is  the    merest   glimpses    of 
God  which  work  all  these  wonders.     A  chance  text  of 
scripture  falls  upon  the  ear,  in  church  or  out  of  it,  and 
a  touch  of  power  comes  with  it,  and  with  the  powrer  a 
flash  of  light,  and  a  saint  is  made.     There  are  brief 
sweetnesses  in  prayer,  which  come  now  and  then  in 
life,  like  shooting  moonbeams  through  rents  on  close- 
p.icked  cloudy  nights.     They  lit  up  the  cross  upon  the 
steeple  and  were  gone.     Bat  the  soul  fed  on  them  for 
days.     There  are  the  first  moments  after  communion, 
an  unearthly  time,  when  we  are  like  Mary  carrying  the 
Lord  of  heaven  and  earth  within  her,  and  we  feel  Him, 
and  have  so  much  to  say  that  we  do  not  speak  at  all , 
and  the  time  passes,  and  we  seem  to  have  missed  an 
opportunity.     But  the  work  was  done,  and   a  super- 
natural health  is  dancing  in  our  blood,  and  straight- 
way we  climb  a  mountain  on  the  road  to  heaven.    Then 
there  are  sudden  guohes  of  love,  and  along  with  the 
love  light  alsoj  and  we  know  not  why  they  come  nor 


456  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

whence.  Heaven  is  all  quiet  above  us,  and  makes  no 
sign.  Circumstances  are  going  on  around  us  in  the  old 
tame  languid  way.  What  can  it  be?  Certainly  it 
came  from  within  as  if  a  depth  of  the  soul  had  broken 
up,  and  flooded  the  surface;  and  we  remember  that, 
within  us,  in  one  of  those  depths,  in  which  perhaps  we 
have  never  been  ourselves,  and  till  eternity  dawns  never 
shall  be,  God  deigns  to  dwell,  and  now  we  understand 
the  secret.  Then  there  are  momentary  unions  with 
Jim  in  times  of  sorrow,  which  were  so  swift  that  they 
looked  like  possibilities  rather  than  actual  visitations. 
But  they  were  true  embraces  from  our  Heavenly  Father 
and  they  have  healed  us  of  diseases,  and  they  have  in- 
fused a  new  strength  into  us,  and  they  were  so  close 
that  we  have  been  tingling  ever  since,  and  feel  the 
pressure  at  this  moment  still.  Then  there  were  flashes 
from  the  monstrance,  which  showed  us  we  know  not 
what  and  told  us  we  know  not  what.  Only  they  made 
the  darkness  of  the  world  very  thick  and  palpable,  like 
lightning  on  a  moonless  night.  But  they  did  a  work; 
for  we  felt  ourselves  laid  hold  of  in  the  solid  darkness 
which  followed  the  sudden  light,  and  hurried  on  over 
stocks  and  stones  and  up  high  places,  and  then  we  were 
left,  lonely,  but  behold!  so  much  nearer  than  we  had 
ever  seen  it  before,  a  pale  streak,  which  was  the  dawn- 
ing of  the  heavenly  day.  Nay,  one  sight  of  God's 
beauty  at  death,  such  a  sight  as  the  dying  have  some- 
times, and  which  we  cannot  explain,  is  enough  in  the 
way  of  sanctity,  to  do  all  life's  work  in  one  short  hour. 
If  God  be  all  this  in  time,  what  must  eternity  be  like? 
0  happy,  happy  saints!  for  awhile  longer  you  shall  be 
in  His  beautiful  light,  and  we  be  far,  far  away:  for 
awhile — yet  but  for  awhile,  and  then  we  also  shall  be 


OUR  OWN  GOD.  457 

with  you,  with  the  same  glad  light  of  that  Divine  Face 
shining  full  upon  our  ransomed  souls! 

Meanwhile  even  upon  earth  God  is  our  possession, 
and  we  are  entering  upon  our  inheritance  by  degrees. 
Jesus  is  the  Creator  clad  in  the  garments  of  redeeming 
love,  and  we  have  Him  here  on  earth  already  all  our 
own,  while  we  are  sadly  but  sweetly  striving  to  be  all 
for  Him.  Already  the  attributes  of  the  Creator  are 
fountains  of  joy  and  salvation  to  the  creature.  Why  do 
we  not  gaze  upon  them  more  intently?  There  is  no 
earthly  science  which  can  compete  in  interest  with  the 
fccience  of  God.  It  i3  a  knowledge  which  quickly  leads 
to  love,  and  love  is  at  once  conversion,  perseverance,  and 
salvation.  The  divine  perfections  support  us  by  their 
contrast  with  what  we  see  on  earth.  They  relieve  our 
minds.  They  increase  our  trust.  They  actually  out  of 
their  own  abundance  supply  our  deficiencies.  They 
feed  our  souls  by  their  grandeur,  and  exercise  an  awful 
mysterious  attraction  upon  us,  drawing  us  towards 
themselves,  yea,  into  themselves.  They  affect  our  souls 
variously  and  medicinally.  Justice  gives  us  the  gift  of 
fear,  while  mercy  emboldens  us  to  the  grace  of  fami- 
liarity. Omnipotence  is  what  our  weakness  wants,  and 
omnipresence  what  our  discouragement  requires.  Our 
ignorance  consoles  itself  in  omniscience,  and  our  fears 
lean  and  rest  themselves  on  providence.  All  our  wants 
and  all  our  weaknesses  and  all  our  wrongnesses  carry 
their  manifold  burdens  to  God's  fidelity,  full  certain  that 
they  will  be  lightened  there.  All  these  perfections  are 
deeps,  into  which  we  are  ever  descending  nuw  with  most 
surpassing  contentment  both  of  mind  and  will,  and  in 
which  we  shall  be  ever  sinking  delightfully  deeper 
through  all  eternity.  They  satisfy  us,  and  they  delight 
by  satisfying;  and  again  they  do  not  satisfy,  and  by  not 


458.  OUR  OWN  GOD, 

satisfying,  they  delight  still  more*  because  of  the  de- 
lightful hunger  which  they  leave  behind,  and  which  is 
in  itself  a  marvellous,  insatiable  contentment.  They 
are  a  rest,  and  out  of  them  there  is  no  rest ;  they  are  a 
home,  and  short  of  them,  all  is  wandering  and  banish- 
ment. They  are  our  own.  They  belong  to  us.  The 
Creator  has  made  them  all  over  to  us  to  be  our  pos- 
session and  our  joy,  as  if  He  kept  them  Himself  only  to 
bear  the  weight  of  them,  so  that  ta  us  they  might  be 
nothing  else  but  joys.*  Even  His  eternity  is  our3;  and 
though  we  are  but  sons  of  time,  yet,  possessing  God,  we 
enjoy  in  Him  eternity,  and  our  religious  minds  even 
now,  much  more  our  glorified  spirits  hereafter,  run  forth 
up  the  backward  ages  and  again  down  the  countless  ages 
yet  untold,  and  ever  lose  themselves,  and  ever  find 
themselves,  in  that  ocean  of  everlasting  life.  Surely 
there  is  no  devotion  like  devotion  to  the  attributes  of 
God.  O  blessed,  0  beautiful  inheritance  of  the  crea- 
ture !  They  are  eternal,  and  will  never  fail  us,  immu- 
table and  will  never  change,  immense  and  always  leave 
us  room.      O  space!    thou  must  widen  thy  gigantic 

*  Nieremberg  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  the  seventh  book  of  his  Prodigy  oi 
Divine  love,  while  dwelling  on  the  way  in  which  God  vouchsafes  to  put  His 
attributes  at  our  disposal,  uses  language  which  might  seem  nearly  to  fall  under 
the  condemnation  passed  by  Innocent  XI.  in  1679.  twenty-one  years  after 
Nieremberg's  death,  on  the  tkeses  de  omnipotentia  donata.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  those  propositions  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  God's 
being  the  last  end  and  enjoyment  of  men.  They  concerned  the  concurrence 
of  His  omnipotence  to  our  actions,  and  our  free  use  of  that  concurrence  in 
sinning,  and  they  implied  the  conclusion  that  God's  dominion  over  His  free 
creatures  was  imperfect  because  of  their  freedom.  These  propositions  ware 
condemned  as  "  at  the  least  temerarious  and  novel."  Viva  has  a  short  com- 
mentary on  them.  (Opera  Omnia :  torn.  vii.  p.  194.  Ferrara  edition.  1757O 
They  are  also  given  by  Philippus  de  Carboneano.the  friend  of  Benedict  XIV., 
in  his  treatise  on  condemned  propositions,  but  he  dee.*  not  nime  tfieir  ant&or; 
nor  does  Denzinger  in  his  Enchiridion;  and  Bernino  does  not  give  them  at  al) 
among  the  propositions  of  Innocent  XL,  perhaps  because  the'*  were  not  cen« 
demned  as  "  heretical." 


OUR  OWN  GOD.  459 

stiadowy  limits,  else  wilt  thou  be  a  very  prison  for  our 
immortal  joys  1 

If  earth  be  such  a  heaven  to  believing  souls,  whafc 
sort  of  heaven  must  the  real  heaven  be?  What  is  that 
incomparable  beauty  which  the  Blessed  are  gazing  on 
this  very  hour?  We  have  no  words  to  tell,  no  thoughts 
to  think  it.  What  is  it  that  that  beauty  is  doing  to 
their  capacious,  serene,  and  glory-strengthened  souls  ? 
We  have  no  words  to  tell,  no  thoughts  to  think  it. 
What  is  that  divine  torrent  of  love  which  bursts  forth 
from  it,  and  threatens  to  submerge  and  overwhelm  their 
separate  created  lives  ?  We  have  no  words,  to  tell,  no 
thoughts  to  think  it.  Whither  reaches  that  white  glis- 
tening eternity  through  which  it  will  endure,  and  which 
seems  to  brighten  in  the  far-off  prospect  rather  than  to 
fade  away,— ■whither  does  it  reach?  We  have  no  words 
to  tell,  no  thoughts  to  think  it. 

Look  how  the  Splendours  of  the  Divine  Nature  gleam 
far  and  wide,  nay  infinitely,  while  the  trumpets  of 
heaven  blow,  and  the  loud  acclaims  of  the  untiring 
creatures  greet  with  jubilant  amazement  the  Living 
Vision!  See  how  Eternity  and  Immensity  entwine 
their  arms  in  inexplicable  embrace,  the  one  filliug  all 
space,  the  other  outliving  all  time  ;  the  one  without 
quantity  or  limit,  the  other  without  beginning,  end,  or 
duration.  See  how  Mercy  and  Justice  mingle  with  and 
magnify  each  other,  how  they  put  on  each  other's  look, 
and  fill  each  other's  offices.  Behold  the  Divine  Under- 
standing and  the  Will,  the  one  for  ever  lightening  up  with 
such  meridian  glory  the  profound  abysses  of  God's  un- 
circutnscribed  Truth  and  illimitable  Wisdom,  the  other 
enfolding  for  ever  in  its  unconsuming  fires  the  incom- 
prehensible Life  of  God,  His  infinite  oceanlike  expanse 
of  being,  and  every  creature  of  the  countless  worlds  that 


4G0  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

from  His  life  draw  their  own.  Look  at  the  Divine  Im- 
mutability and  Liberty,  how  they  sit  together  like 
sisters,  deep  enthroned  in  that  marvellous  Life,  and  how 
God  is  free  because  He  is  immutable,  and  immutable 
because  He  is  so  free.  See  how  the  Son  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  know  all  the  Father's  knowledge,  and  yet  He 
alone  by  His  understanding  produces  that  coeternal 
Word  who  is  His  Son.  See  how  the  Holy  Ghost  has 
all  the  love  both  of  the  Father  and  the  Son;  and  yet 
They  alone  by  Their  will  produced  that  blessed  Limit 
of  Themselves,  that  uncreated  Sigh,  that  sacred  Jubilee 
of  Theirs,  that  everlasting  Bond  of  union,  who  is  the 
Holy  Ghost.  Thus  is  the  loving  Light  of  the  Divine 
Understanding  ever  on  fire  with  Love ;  and  thus  is  the 
living  Love  of  the  divine  Will  ever  gleaming  with  the 
magnificence  of  uncreated  Light.  All  this  life,  and  all 
this  assemblage  of  perfections,  and  all  this  royal  vision, 
and  all  this  eternal  intertwining  of  uncreated  beauties, 
is  itself  a  simple  act,  and  its  simplicity  and  its  actuality 
are  the  crowning  beauties  of  it  all.  God  is.  He  pos- 
sesses actually  all  the  plenitude  of  being,  without  ad- 
mixture of  privation,  without  dilution  of  possibility  ;  for 
not  only  are  all  things  possible  in  Him  but  all  possibili- 
ties are  actual  to  Him.  He  never  yet  has  been  able  to 
be:  He  never  will  be  able  to  be  :  He  never  will  be  able 
not  to  be.  He  simply  is.  Beginning,  end,  succession, 
change — they  come  not  nigh  Him.  They  breathe  no 
breath  upon  Him.  He  is  a  Pure  Act.  As  St.  Gregory 
Nazianzen  says,  He  is  all  things,  and  yet  He  is  nothing, 
because  He  does  not  belong  to  things  at  all.  He  is, 
and  He  is  eternally,  and  He  is  necessarily,  and  He  is  of 
Himself.  It  is  this  Simplicity,  this  Actuality,  which 
passes  over  the  Grand  Vision  with  incessant  soft  flashes 
from  end  to  end  and  again  from  end  to  end,  of  that 


OUR  OWN  GOD.  4GX 

endless  Nature,  and  which  is  to  the  Face  of  God  what 
expression  is  to  the  face  of  man,  at  once  its  charm 
and  its  identity,  its  beauty  and  its  truth.  As  we  know- 
each  other  by  our  looks,  so  we  know  God  by  H13  Sim- 
plicity. 

0  happy  souls  of  the  Blessed,  and  what  of  you? 
It  is  all  written  in  the  Holy  Book;*  and  it  needs  no 
commenting.  On  the  third  day  she  laid  away  the  gar- 
ments she  wore,  and  put  on  her  glorious  apparel.  And 
glittering  in  royal  robes,  after  she  had  called  upon  God, 
the  Ruler  and  Saviour  of  all,  she  took  two  maids  with 
her.  And  upon  one  of  them  she  leaned,  as  if,  for  deli,- 
cateness  and  over-much  tenderness,  she  were  not  able 
to  bear  up  her  own  body.  And  the  other  maid  followed 
her  lady,  bearing  up  her  train  flowing  on  the  ground. 
But  she  with  a  rosy  colour  in  her  face,  and  with 
gracious  and  bright  eyes,  hid  a  mind  full  of  exceeding 
great  fear.  In  going  in  she  passed  through  all  the  doors 
in  order,  and  stood  before  the  King,  where  He  sat  upon 
His  royal  throne,  clothed  with  His  royal  robes,  and 
glittering  with  gold  and  piecious  stones,  and  He  was 
terrible  to  behold.  And  when  He  had  lifted  up  His 
countenance,  the  queen  sank  down,  and  her  colour  turned 
pale,  and  she  rested  her  weary  head  upon  her  hand- 
rr.aid.  And  the  King's  spirit  was  changed  into  mildness, 
and  all  in  haste  He  leaped  from  His  throne,  and  hold- 
ing her  up  in  His  arms  till  she  came  to  herself,  caressed 
her  with  these  words:  What  is  the  matter,  Esther?  I 
am  thy  Brother,  fear  not.  Thou  shalt  not  die:  fur  this 
law  is  not  made  for  thee,  but  for  all  others.  Come  near 
then,  and  touch  the  sceptre.  And  as  she  held  her 
peace,  He  took  the  golden  sceptre,  and  laid  it  upon  her 

•  Esther  xt. 


462  OUR  OWN  GOD. 

neck,  and  kissed  her,  and  said,  Why  dost  thou  not  speak 
to  Me?  And  she  answered,  I  saw  T.'iee,  my  Lord,  as 
an  angel  of  God,  and  my  heart  was  troubled  for  fear  of 
Thy  majesty.  For  Thou,  my  Lord,  art  very  admirable, 
as  Thy  Face  is  full  of  graces !  And  while  she  was 
speaking  she  fell  down  again,  and  was  almost  in  a 
swoon.  But  the  King  was  troubled,  and  all  His  ser- 
vants comforted  her. 

Such  is  the  picture  of  the  Creator  and  the  creature. 
It  is  a  history  of  the  truest  love  that  ever  was :  nay  of 
the  only  love  that  was  ever  truly  true.  And  what  is 
the  end  of  all  ?  We  are  God's  own  creatures,  and  God 
is  our  own  God.  All  else  will  fail  us,  but  He  never 
will.  All  is  love  with  Him,  love  in  light  and  love  in 
darkness,  love  always  and  everywhere.  There  are  many 
difficulties  left  unexplained,  many  problems  yet  unsolv- 
ed. Would  it  not  be  strange,  if  it  were  not  so,  seeing 
that  He  is  infinite  and  we  finite,  He  is  Creator  and  we 
but  creatures?  But  the  difficulties  are  only  difficulties 
of  love.  There  is  nothing  cold  in  them,  nothing 
,'frightening,  nothing  which  goes  one  step  towards  dis- 
proving that  sweet  proof  that  He  is  our  own  God,  our 
very  own.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  wondering  why  we 
are  not  in  heaven  already.  The  wonder  and  the  diffi- 
culty are,  that  such  as  we  know  ourselves  to  be  should 
ever  enter  there  at  all.  This  is  the  great  difficulty,  and 
it  is  a  difficulty  for  tears.  Yet  when  that  difficulty 
looks  up  into  the  face  of  God's  Fidelity,  then  that 
sweetest  and  most  soothing  of  all  our  Creator's  gran- 
deurs wipes  the  tears  from  our  eyes,  and  hope  comes 
out  from  behind  her  cloud,  and  shines  softly,  and  the 
heart  is  still.  Our  own  God?  And  so  beautiful!  A 
theologian  said  that  if  one  lost  soul  could  reunite  in 
itself  all  the  rage  and  hatred  of  all  the  lost  against  God, 


our  own  god.  463 

and  that  it  could  root,  fortify,  and  confirm  all  tin's 
gigantic  rage  and  hatred  in  itself  for  millions  and  mil- 
lions of  years,  until  it  had  become  a  new,  ineradicable, 
£wd  preternatural  nature  to  him,  one  little  ray  of  God's 
beauty  falling  gently  on  him  for  a  single  moment  would 
change  hi's  whole  being  that  instant  into  such  respectful 
]ove  and  utter  adoration,  that  he  would  not  feel  the 
fires  that  burned  him,  because  of  the  greater  fires  of  his 

transported  love.  But  we  are  free,  and  we  are  in 
earth's  fair  sunshine,  and  our  heart  is  full  of  a  little  but 
most  true  love  of  God,  and  a  whole  world  of  God's 
blessed  love  is  resting  on  our  single  heart, — and  shall  we 
doubt,  shall  we  hesitate,  shall  we  tremble,  shall  we  be 
chilled  in  the  midst  of  all  these  fires  of  love  ?  0  mj 
Creator,  my  Eternal  Lovel  0  my  Father,  my  Heaven- 
ly  Father!  weary  yet  full  of  trust,  worthless  but  truly 
loving  Thee,  on  earth  still  and  very  far  from  heaven,  my 
home  and  my  rest  are  still  in  Thy  Fidelity  I  In  te, 
Doiuine  !  speravi,  non  confundar  in  selenium  ! 


THE   EXD# 


465 


INDEX. 


Abjectness  of  the  Creature  70 

Absolution  311 

Actions  239,  309— multiplicity  of  241, 
244— of  the  Incarnate  Word  245 — 
power  of  good  324 — outward,  often 
worse  than  the  heart  371 

Adam,  created  iu  a  state  of  grace  49, 
96, 143,  431 

Adoration,  love  of  235 

Age,  old  105 

Air,  the  160 

Alphonso,  St.  347,  453 

Alvarez  345 

Angela,  B.  of  Foligno  118 

Angels,  the,  sin  of  23— created  in  a 
state  of  grace  49,  52,  96,  148,  430 
— watch  over  men  64— fall  of 
81, 148— guardian  84— diversities  of 
21 1— worship  of  240  joy  of,  oyer 
penitents  292— glory  of  378 

Animals,  necessary  to  man  67 

Annihilation  55 

Armour,  against  the  world  428 

Asceticism  39 

Atheism,  in  literature  25— in  politics 
29,  31— in  physical  science  31 

Attrition  294,  note 

Augustine,  St.  172 

Austerity  103 

Aversion  to  God  250 

Baianism  49 
Baius  48,  49,  50 
Balance  of  power  30 
Baptism  of  infants  150— What  is  in- 
volved in  305 

SO      t 


Beatitude  154— price  of  155 — of  the 

glorified  soul  285 
Bellarmine345 
BeneTolence,  love  of  227 
Bergier  348 
Bernard,  St.  417 
Bible,  the  146 
Billuart  347 
Body,  the  glorified  284 
Books,  scientific  23— spiritual  117 
Borgia,  St.  Francis  tl8 
Bossuet  423 
Brodie,  Sir  Eenjamin  367 

Cajctan  345 
Carthagena  345 
Catherine,  St.  of  Siena  118 
Catholics,   aims    of  ordinary  253  — 

great  majority  of,  are  saved    338 

364— test  of  worldly  414 
Cerinthus  122 
Character,  formed,  by  the  Church 

32— by  the  world  33 
Charitableness  354 
Charity,  spurious  121,  123 
Childlike  131 
Christo,  Franciscus  de  3+ 
Church,  the  123— treasury        3^7— 

graces  of  338,  385— counterfeited 

by  the  world  402 
Civilization,    monomanias    of    27  — 

work  of  401 
Communication  of  God  431 
Communion  318 
Compact  with  God  93 
Complacence,  love  of  228 


466 


INDEX. 


Condolence,  love  of  230 
Condren  366 

Considerateness  of  God  215 
Conservation  171 
Conscience,  a  seared  411 
Conscientiousness  445,  448 
Confession  150 
Confirmation,    sacrament    of    150, 

323 
Contemplation  117 
Controversies  of  the  day  427 
Conversions    310— deathbed     343 — 

numerous  355,  374 
Converts  40 

Creation,  mystery  of  83,  126— defini- 
tion of  13s— valued  by  God  135— 
in  a  state  of  grace  143— a  revela- 
tion of  God  170— possibilities   of 
other    210— glorifies    God   435— 
history  of  437 
Creator,  the  23— purposes  of  the  61 
— reveiatioh  of,  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment 87— idea  Of   91,  95,  .101— 
service  of  105 
Creatures,  importance  of  remember- 
ing that  we  are  22— evil  effects  of 
forgetting  that  we  are  34,  43— 
what  are  53— home  of  56.  437— 
true  dignity  of  62— condition  of  65 
— meaning  of  77— bound  to  serve 
the  Creator  out  of  love  80— in- 
fluence of  85— relation  of,  to  the 
Creator  89— desire  God  90— God 
loves  the  161— holiness  of  T87 — 
happiness    of    272  -sufferings  ,of 
,328 
Cross,  the,  mystery  of  267 

Da  Ponte  349 

Death,  when  it  comes  63— a  punish- 
ment 274— a  good  291— hour  of 
367 

Decrees,  the  divine  141 

Deformity  of  sin  375 

Denys,  the  Carthusian  345 

Dependency  of  man  69— on  grace 
97 

Desire,  love  of  233 


Detachment  229 

Devotions,  Catholic,  source  of  obj  c- 

tions  to  124 
Devil,  the  76 
Difficulties  302— about  the  salvation 

bf  heretics  340 
Dignity  of  man  32,  71,  103 
Diplomacy,  irreligious  29— religious 

203 
Discernment,  spTritual  425 
Disobedience  329 
Dives  406,  413 
Dolours,  the  seven  231 
Dominion      57— Characteristics     of 

God's  252 
Drexelius  345 
Durandus  171 
Duty  and  love  440,  447 

Earth,  mother  145 

Election  143,  219 

Eli.seus  362 

Elizabeth,  St.,  of  Hungary  442 

Embraces  of  God  45(5 

End  of  man  54,  56,  62,  77,  98,  106, 

107 
England,  state  of,  122 
Enthusiasm   114— definitions  of   115 

— what  men  mean  by  116 
Errors,  dangers  of  popular  35 
Espousals,  the  divine  112 
Esteem,  love  of  229 
Eternity  63 
Extasy  386 

Faith,  the,  temptations  against  165, 
260— gift  of  271— outlives  mortal 
sin  3 10— greatness  of  the  gift  of 
383— certainty  of  384 

Fallacies,  popular,  dangers  of  37 

Falsehood  307 

Fall,  the  71,  81— of  the  Angels  148 

Fasolus  345 

Fear,  holy  234 

Fervour,  times  of  2<5i 

Fidelity  of  God  460 

Forbearance  of  God  215 


INDEX. 


467 


Forgiveness,  profusion  of  214,  217. 

222 
Francis,  St.  118 
Francis  of  Sales,  St.  417 
Friendship  216 
Fromond  423 

Generation,  the  Eternal,  of  the  Son 
169 

Gertrude,  St.  119,  275 

Gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  J06 

Glory,  gifts  of  432— light  of  436 

Gospel,  the  316 

God,  forgetfulness  of  23,  28— ignored 
24,  107,  113,  340— requires  a 
special  service  from  every  man  61 
— Providence  of  70— object  of 
man's  thoughts  76- end  of  man 
77.  97.  242,  429— how  men  use  78 
— life  of  86— desired  by  creatures 
90— rights  of  93 — will  of  94— con- 
currence of  95 ,  101, 177— never  fails 
us  98— absolute  sovereignty  of  101 
His  own  end  1C2,  180— must  be 
served  by  the  whole  man  109 — 
wrong  notions  about  113— inade- 
quate views  of  the  love  of  124— 
worth  of  the  Creation  in  the  sight 
of  135— joys  of  137— never  without 
creatures  141— successive  revela- 
tions of  145— patience  of  153  — 
longs  for  our  love  156— love  o£ 
unimaginable  162— long  suffering 
of  179— holiness  of  186— loves  us, 
why  196— object  of  our  love  200 
—government  of  214—  paternal 
tenderness  of  217— liberality  of  248 
— man's  ignorance  of  249— unre- 
quited love  of  262.  264— recom- 
penses of  268,  276,  288— His  judg- 
ment of  man  39b— glory  of  432 

Goodness  of  God  116,  152,  207,  289 
—known  by  degrees  359 

Grace,  sanctifying  96,  270,"  317— our 
dependence  oh  97— kingdom  of 
147— of  the  Saints  247— abundance 
of  257,  2$8»  282-effects  of  281— 
universality  of  282,  325— varieties 


of,  283— struggles  of,  against  sin 
310,  361— state  of  332— of  the  sa- 
craments 365 — lost  by  angels  and 
men  434, 

Granadus  345 

Gratitude,  love  of  23s 

Guardian  Angel  318 

Habits,  supernatural  305 

Hatred  of  God  250 

Heart,  the  Sacred  372 

Hearts,  reserved  for  God  136 

Heathen,  picture  of  an  honest  34,  8a 

Heathens,  how  regarded  by  the 
fathers  121 

Heaven  283,  290— hierarchies  of  378 

Hell  333— the  thought  of  334—  teach- 
ing of  379 

Helplessness  of  man  66 

Here  and  hereafter  106 

Heretics,  how  regarded  by  thefuthera 
121 

Holiness  77— first  principles  of  «i — 
order  of  103— of  God  186— of  the 
creature  187— wherein  it  consists 
438 

Humiliation  of  pardon  72- 

Ideas  peculiar  *o  the  Church  39 

Igoatius,  St.  453 

Ignorances  of  man  66— invincible  370 

Imitation,  the,  of  Christ  37 

Impetration,  power  of  325 

Incarnation,  the  decree  of  60 — Thom- 
ist  account  of  125— Scotist  account 
of  149,  175— results  of  223 

Indifference  about  God  252 

Indulgences  313 

Infants,  baptized  134 

Influx  of  God  95 

Inheritance  of  man  63 

Innocence,  the  state  of  50 

Insects  67 

Intention  255  -  doctrine  of  308 

Interest  103 

Irreligion  30— common  3* 

Isaias,  woe  of  412 

Jansenius  48,  50 


468 


INDEX. 


Jansenism  49 
John,  St.  122 
John  St.  of  the  Cross  37 

Johnson,  Dr.  115     . 

Joy,  the  service  of  God  109— of  God 

136— sources  of  a  natural  279 
Joylessness4i6' 
Judgment,  the  final  389 
Judgments,  erroneous  354. 
Justice,  original  50— of  God  184 

Knowledge  of  God,  envied  by  Adam 
81 — not  common  i04~»results  of 
the  loss  of  249 

Lacordalre  348,  423 

Lapide,  Cornelius  a  347 

Lazarus  413 

Le  Blanc,  F.  118 

Leonard,  the  B.,  of  Port  Maurice  347 

Lessius  154, 173.  431.  435 

Liberty  104 

Lie3  307 

Life,  bound  up  with  creatures  85  — 
of  God  86— waste  of  106— a  pil- 
grimage 237 

Lipsin349 

Literature,  irreligious  30  — of  the 
Church  37 

Loneliness  318 

Lorinus  346 

Love,  God  must  be  served  Jn  42.  80 
— effect  of  God's  91— the  service  of 
God  in— difficulties  of  creative 
129— why  God  seeks  our  132— 
place  of,  in  repentance  133— sole 
desire  of  God  156— explains  mys- 
teries 159— depths  of  divine  163, 
167 — the  first  free  act  of  God  166 
—eternal,  of  God  168— precept  of 
200,  218— personal  206  —  seven 
kinds  of  226— of  the  saints  248— 
our  254,  258— marks  of  true  258— 
never  satisfied  260— creative  299— 
of  God,  fills  the  earth  337— life  of 
creation  w-vetiQiul,  of  God  439, 
449 


Loveliness,  of  God  189— of  our  Lady 

236 
Luther  419 
Lyra  345 

Maldonatus  345 

Man,  created  in  a  state  of  grace  49, 
52— fill  of  51, 148— ignorance  of  54. 
58,  66— consequences  of  birth  of 
55— history  of  58— predestination 
of  60— God's  love  for  61 — mercies 
snrround  63— helplessness  of  66, 
70—  dependent  on  the  lower  ani- 
mals 67— must  not  criticize  his 
position  74— sole  pursuit  of  75— 
end  of  77,  242— nothingness  of  173 
— guiltiness  of  176— meanness  of 
182— littleneas  of  174,  196— subject 
of  God  213— raised  above  the  an- 
gels 218— unworthiness  of  246— 
loved  from  all  eternity  300— has 
no  rights  301 

Margaret  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament 
374 

Marriage,  the  spiritual  220 

Martha  232 

Mary  Magdalene,  St.  of  Pazzi  190 

Mary  314— intercession  of  320 

Matrimony,  sacrament  of  150,  333 

Meanness  182  -"* 

Meditation  117 

Mercy,  humbles  73— of  God  164,  194 
minister  of  the  Precious  Blood 
195— overshadowed  280 

Meriting,  power  of  325 

Metaphysics  65 

Middle  life  98 

Mission,  divine  269 

Molina  172,  345 

Motives,  earthly  259 

Mysteries,  five  131 

Nativity,  the  289 

Nature  and  grace  48,  434— distinct' 

5i 
Nature,  the  divine  93,  207— kingdonx- 

of  138,  277 
No  thingness  J 18, 288 


INDEX., 


4C9 


Notions,  false,  among  Catholics  37 

Obedience  213 
Obligations  of  man  201 
Omnipresence  of  God  433 
Order,  sacrament  of  151 

Palafox  423 

Papacy,  the  224,  32S 

Passion,  the  315 

Patience  of  God  263 

Pei:ance,  sacrament  of  72— unlimited 

iteration  of  311 
Perfection,  maxims  of,  unintelligible 
to  some  21 — foundations  of  43 — of 
God  139— of  the  divine  nature  2c8 
Persons,  the  divine  271 
Pharisees  406 
Pleasures,  sinful  331 
Politics,  irreligious  29 
Power  of  God  191 
Prayer,  grace  of  321 
Predestination,  of  man  60— of  God 

143,  166— a  sign  cf  385 
Presence,  the  Ileal  317 
Preservation  90,  243 
Priestcraft  119 
Principles  425 

Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  169 
Progress,  theories  of  26 
Propositions,  condemned,  of  Baius 

and  Quesnel  53 
Propriety  of  man  29.  74 
Prosperity,  dangers  of  403 
Providence  of  God  382 
Purgatory,  souls  in  186— mercy  in 
194— tire  of   313,  376— multiplies 
the  fruits  of  the  Passion  377 

Queen  of  the  angels  313 

Quesnel  48 

Questions  of  children  129 

Recupitus  345,  347 
Redemption  362— denied  to  the  an- 
gels 434 
Reformers  419 
Relapses,  one  effect  of  357 


Religion,  practical  basis  of  80-what 

is  it  230 

Remission  of  venial  sin  308 

Repentance,  a  deathbed  293— made 
easy  by  God  301 

Rel-robate,  number  of  the  345 

Respectability  of  worldlineas  410 

Responsibilities  44 

Reverence  of  God  for  His  creatures 
100 

Revelation,    providence   of   God,   a 
private  380 

Riches  408 

Rich,  the,  difficulties  about  the  sal- 
vation of  423 

Rights  of  God  93 
Ruiz  345 

r 

Sacrament,  the  Blessed  T65 

Sacraments,  the,  graces  of  365 
Saint,  what  is  a  37,  80,  246— prayer 
of  a  319— hopeful  about  sinners 
373— how  made  453 

Salvation  303— easy  304,  336— condi- 
tions of  306— means  of  330 

Sanctity  33— motives  of  305 

Satan,  activity  of  359 

Satisfaction,  power  of  326 

Satispassion  328 —sacrifice  of  329 

Science,  influence  of  33, 104 

Savonarola  419 

Saved,  the,  opinions  about  the  num- 
ber of  351 

Scruples,  one  source  of  446 

Scotus  173 

Secrecy  of  good  works  358 

Seculars  must  aim  at  perfection  42 

Self-abasement  99 

Self- concentration,  whence  it  comes 

445 
Senses,  the,  power  of  144 

Servants  215 

Service  of  God,  our  178— the  one 
thing  254— a  captivity  259 

Silvestri,  Card.  Tietro  de  44 

Sin,  forms  of,  change  23— danger  of 
trying  to  do  no  more  than  avoiding 
mortal  43- forgiveness   of  266— 


470 


rNDESc 


doctrine  of  307— pleasures  of  331— 
eternal  punishment  of  335  —  of 
worldliness  407— interior  409 

Sinners,  succession  of  355— the  predi- 
lection of  Jesus  for  37a 

Smiaing  345 

Society,  dangers  of  36 

Sorrow  273 

Souls,  love  of  64 

Spirits,  realms  of  84 

Spirituality,  not  peculiar  to  religious 
41— why  people  object  to  43 

Suarez  173,345 

Suffering,  voluntary  202 

Cuicide  56 

Super-fulness  of  God  208 

Sylvester  345 

Systems,  philosophical  30 

Temptation  370 

Teresa  St.  37 

Testament,  the  old  86— food  of  the 

ancient     saints      88— infuses      a 

'strange  knowledge  of  God  88 
Thauler  96 
Theology,  importance  of  28— teach* 

ings  of  84— study  of  427 
Thief,  the  good  J55 
Thomas,  St.  138 
Thomists  28 
Thought,  sins  of  410 
Touting  for  vocations  120 
Trent,  catechism  of  the  council  of 

410 
Trinity,  the  Holy  170 
Triumph  of  God  291 
Truth,  religious  157— the  .beauty  of 

God  1 94 -investigation  of  278 


Unction,  Extreme    150,   J13,   323, 

324 
Union  with  God  110 
Unseen,  the  57 
Untruth,  193,  307 

Vasquez  173,  347 

Views,  rigid,  do  harm  391— gloomy 

416— bright  417,  420 
Virtues,  infused  305,  note 
Vision,  the  beatific  153,  236.  286— 

what  earns  156— grandeur  of  287, 

336— eternal  455 
Vocations  119 
Vows  41 

Wickedness  of  man  175 

Will  of  God  94,  323 

Wisdom  of  God  190 

World,  the,  not  man's  57-tlie  only 
account  of  98— morality  of  105— 
an  imaginary  198— the  moral  278 
—an  influence  397— evil  power  of 
398— the  supernatural  hated  by 
403 — spirit  of  415,  421 

Worldliaess  394,  399— peculiar  evils 
of  396— effects  of  405— definition  of 
406— a  life  of  409— sears  the  con- 
science  411— effect    of    ou  good 

v  people  423— not  sufficiently  dread- 
ed 425 

Worlds,  fourteen,  in  tne  life  of  God 

139 

Worship  Of  God  108 

Years,  the  three-aadthirty  315 


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